Early baseball in Missouri/Game 1
From SABR Encyclopedia
| Spread of baseball: Home -> Missouri -> Early baseball in Missouri/Game 1 |
 | This record has been submitted recently, and has not yet been reviewed. This does not imply that the information is incorrect, but that it is not yet included in official datasets. This notice will no longer appear once the record has been reviewed. |
| Location | Missouri |
|---|---|
| Year | 1849 |
| Month | 4 |
| Date | 23 |
| City | Independence |
| State | MO |
| Country | US |
| Was NY rules baseball | Unknown |
| Played by | Unknown |
“Indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi may not have seen the game until 1849 when Alexander Cartwright, near Independence, Missouri, noted baseball play in his April 23rd diary entry: ‘During the past week we have passed the time in fixing wagon covers . . . etc., varied by hunting and fishing and playing baseball [sic]. It is comical to see the mountain men and Indians playing the new game. I have a ball with me that we used back home.’”
Altherr, Thomas L., “North American Indigenous People and Baseball: ‘The One Single Thing the White Man Has Done Right,’” in Altherr, ed., Above the Fruited Plain: Baseball in the Rocky Mountain West, SABR National Convention Publication, 2003, page 20. Note: XXX need to add Tom’s footnote 5, which references the diary. Is Tom saying that there were no prior safe-haven ball games [cricket, town ball, wicket] out west, or just that the NY game hadn’t arrived until 1849?
Protoball record 1849.3 from Protoball project
