Early baseball in Massachusetts/Predecessor Game 63
From SABR Encyclopedia
Spread of baseball: Home -> Massachusetts -> Early baseball in Massachusetts/Predecessor Game 63 |
Location | Massachusetts |
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Year | 1853 |
City | Exeter |
State | MA |
Country | US |
Name of game | Rounders (retro) |
"The game of "rounders," as it was played in the days before the Civil War, had only a faint resemblance to our modern baseball. For a description of a typical contest, which took place in 1853, we are indebted to Dr. William A. Mowry:"
[Several students had posted a challenge to play "a game of ball," and that challenge was accepted.] �The game was a long one. No account was made of �innings;' the record was merely of runs. When one had knocked the ball, had run the bases, and had reached the �home goal,' that counted one �tally.' The game was for fifty tallies. . . . [T]he pitcher stood midway between the second and third bases, but nearer the center of the square . . . Well, we beat the eleven [50-37].' [Mowry then tells of his success in letting the ball hit the ball and glance away over the wall "behind the catchers," which allowed him to put his side ahead.]
Claude M. Fuess, An Old New England School: A History of Phillips Academy, Andover [Houghton Mifflin, 1917], pp. 449-450. Researched by George Thompson, based on partial information from reading notes by Harold Seymour. Note: It appears that Fuess saw this game as rounders, but Mowry did not use that name. The game as described is indistinguishable from the MA game.