Early baseball in New Mexico/Game 1

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Spread of baseball: Home -> New Mexico -> Early baseball in New Mexico/Game 1
Location New Mexico
Year 1865
Note on date 1864 to 1868
City Da Baca County
State NM
Country US
Was NY rules baseball Unknown
Played by Unknown
Found by John Thorn

The story is sketchy, but it appears possible that Navahos held at a reservation in NM in the 1860s may have been taught a form of base ball, and continued to play and modify the game for many years thereafter.

Under the heading "Games Derived from Europeans," Culin wrote in 1907 that there was a "Navaho game of baseball" played as late as the 1880s, and that "the Navaho learned the game from the whites when imprisoned at the Bosque Redondo." Navahos and Apaches were in confinement from 1864 to 1868.

Culin's informant (anthropologist Berard Haile) described [in about 1906] the game as having evolved from any form of base ball that we know of in the 1860s, to include one-out-side-out innings, plugging, an absence of foul ground, compulsory running on a fourth strike, multiple batters at bat at the same time.

The native Americans were supervised by soldiers detailed to Fort Sumner, which is about 160 miles E of Albuquerque in SE New Mexico.

Sources

Stewart Culin, Games of the North American Indians, 1907. Special thanks to John Thorn and Bruce Allardice for unearthing and researching this find.


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