America's National Game. Albert G. Spalding

as the wire on a helix of a magnetic armature. When the winding was complete the surface of the ball was thoroughly sewed with a large needle and thread to prevent it from unwinding when a thread was cut. The diamond was not arbitrarily marked off as now. Sometimes there were four bases, and sometimes six or seven. They were not equidistant, but were marked by any fortuitous rock, or shrub, or depression in the ground where the steers were wont to bellow and paw up the earth. One of these tellural cavities was almost sure to be selected as ' the den,' now called the home-plate. There were no masks, or mitts, or protectors. There was no science or chicanery, now called 'head-work.' The strapping young oafs — embryonic preachers, presidents and premiers — were too honest for this. The pitcher was the one who could throw the ball over the 'den,' and few could do this. His object was to throw a ball that could be hit. The paddleman's object was to hit the ball, and if he struck at it — which he need not do unless he chose — and missed it, the catcher, standing well back, tried to catch it after it had lost its momentum by striking the earth once and bounding in the air — ' on the first bounce ' it was called — and if he succeeded the paddleman was dead and another took his place. If he struck it and it was not caught in the field or elsewhere, in the air or on the first bounce, he could strike twice more, but the third time he was compelled to run. There was no umpire, and very little wrangling. There was no effort to pounce upon a base runner and touch him with the ball. Anyone having the ball could throw it at him, and if it hit him he was ' dead ' — almost literally sometimes. If he dodged the ball, he kept on running till the den was reached. Some of the players became proficient in ducking, dodging and side-stepping, and others learned to throw the ball with the accuracy of ' a rifle bullet. No matter how many players were on a side, each and every one had to be put out. And if the last one made three successive home runs, he ' brought in his side,' and the outfielders, pitcher and catcher had to do their work all over again. The boy . who could bring in his side was a hero. No victorious general was . ever prouder or more lauded. Horatius at the bridge was small: potatoes in comparison. He was the uncrowned king. There were no foul hits. If the ball touched the bat ever so lightly it was a ' tick,' and three ticks meant a compulsory run. The score was kept by someone cutting notches in a stick, and the runs in an afternoon ran up into the hundreds. If a ball was lost in the grass or rolled under a Scotch thistle, the cry 'lost ball' was raised and the game stopped until it was found.

       " Only the older country ball players can remember those days and games. They did not last long. When the change came, it came suddenly. Technicalities and rules began to creep in. Tricks between the pitcher and catcher, designed to fool the batter, began. The argot or slang of the game intruded. The country boys who went to college found more than their new homespun suits, of which they were so proud on leaving home, out of date. The ball game was all changed. They had to use a round club instead of a paddle to hit the ball. They had to change their tactics all through the game. They found the pitcher not intent upon throwing a ball that could be hit, but so that it would be hit at and missed. The bases were laid off with mathematical accuracy. They could be put out in many unknown and surprising ways. They could not throw a ball at a base runner. They could not wander at will over the field, but must occupy a certain position. All was changed. All has been changed since. The expert of even twenty years ago would be lost to-day. The game of ball has been growing more scientific every year. It will continue to grow more scientific for years to come. The homespun-clad boys who returned home on vacation expecting to ' show off,' and teach their former companions the game of ball up to date, discovered the innovation had preceded them, and that those who had not left the old haunts knew all about the game excepting the very newest wrinkles. And they knew something which the college boys had not learned."

      CHAPTER IV.

       FIRST BASE BALI CLUB – THE OLD KNICKERBOCKERS – THEIR EMINENT RESPECTABILITY AND FINE SOCIAL QUALITIES – THE MAN WHO ORGANIZED THE FIRST BASEBALL CLUB.

      1845-55 ALTHOUGH accepting the finding of the Commission of 1907 as definitely establishing the American origin of our national game, and that it was first put on record by the scheme devised by young Doubleday, in 1839, it is known that the game of Baseball, in crude form, had been played for many years previous to that date, and it was doubtless from the fact of his familiarity with it in earlier years that the embryo Major General was inspired to formulate his system looking toward its perfection.

      In his admirable little work, entitled "Base Bail," Mr. John Montgomery Ward, the famous old time player, and at present a member of the New York bar, declares that:

       "Col. James Lee, elected an honorary member of the Knickerbocker Club in 1846, said that he had often played the game when a boy, and at that time he was a man of sixty or more years.

       "Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Said to the reporter of a Boston paper that Baseball was one of the sports of his college days at Harvard, and Dr. Holmes graduated in 1829.

       " Mr. Charles DeBost, the catcher and captain of the old Knickerbockers, played Baseball on Long Island fifty years ago, and it was the same game which the Knickerbockers afterward played."

      No longer ago than last year, the following appeared in the columns of the Erie (Pa.) Tribune:

       To the Editor of The Tribune.

       Sir: I find this morning in The Tribune an article on the " Origin of Baseball" quoted from another periodical. In this article it is said that Baseball probably grew out of the English game of " rounders."

       I dm in my eighty-third year, and I know that seventy years ago, as a boy at school in a country school district in Erie County, Pa., I played Baseball with my schoolmates; and I know it was a common game long before my time. It had just the same form as the Baseball of to-day, and the rules of the game were nearly the same as they are now.

       One bad feature of the old game, I am glad to say, is not now permitted. The catchers, both the one behind the batter and those on the field, could throw the ball and hit the runner between the bases with all the swiftness he could put into it — " burn him," it was called. That cruel part of the game has been abolished; the ball is now thrown to the base before the runner reaches it, if possible, and this puts him out.

       I never heard of the game called " rounders." " One old cat " or " two old cat " was played then as now; but it was in nothing like the Baseball of my boyhood days. Real Baseball, with some slight variation of the rules, as it has come down to the present day must be at least a hundred years old; it may be a thousand. Perhaps it has come down to us from the old times of the Greeks' and Romans, as many games and other good things have done.

       Erie, Pa., April 8, 1910.

       Andrew H. Caughey,

      At a Puritan banquets held at Detroit, Mich., December 17, 1908, among the speakers were Ray Stannard Baker, the Michigan author; R. F. Sutherland, of Windsor, Speaker of the Canadian Parliament, and Samuel J. Elder, the prominent Boston lawyer. Mr. Elder replied to the toast, " The Puritans," and treated the subject in a rather anecdotal way. He told a number of instances of the humor of the early Puritans, among other things mentioning Gov. Bradford's account of a ball game at Plymouth. It seemed that some of the newcomers refused to work on Christmas Day because it was " against their conscience " to work on that day, and were duly excused on account of their scruples. Returning from work, however, the Governor found them playing ball in the streets, and told them it was " against his conscience" that they should play .and others work. He therefore took away their ball and bats, and thus broke up what may have been the first ball game in America.

      However, for lack of any Organized clubs whose records were preserved, there is a dearth of information on the subject of Baseball in its earlier years, save that which comes to us from the recollections of men such as gave utterance to the foregoing excerpts. But these were men of the past, not the present century, and it is so far a cry, from 1911 to