78 



BASE-BALL. 



was hit by the ball thrown at him while run- 

 ning from base to base. The New York Club 

 rules of the Knickerbockers of 1845 governed 

 the game in the metropolis up to the year 1857, 

 when the then existing clubs prominent among 

 which were the Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle, 

 and Empire, of New York ; the Excelsior, Put- 

 nam, Atlantic, Eckford, and Continental, of 

 Brooklyn ; and the Harlem and Union of Mor- 

 risania met together in convention in May, 

 and organized a " National Association of Base- 

 Ball Players." The new code of playing-rules 

 adopted by this Association in 1857 was another 

 step in the evolution of the game toward a per- 

 fect development. The u New York game " 

 as the game as played under the Association 

 rules was then called, in contradistinction to the 

 Philadelphia town-ball, and the Eastern, Mas- 

 sachusetts, or New England game made rapid 

 strides in popular favor during 1858 and 1859. 

 But it was left to the Excelsior Club of Brook- 

 lyn to give an impetus to the increasing popu- 

 larity of base-ball, and this was done by the 

 two grand tours this club made in 1860, the 

 first through the western cities of New York 

 State, and the second through Pennsylvania 

 and Maryland. In fact, it may be said that our 

 American game started on its voyage of life in 

 1860, for its previous existence had only amount- 

 ed to a series of trial-trips, as it were, prepara- 

 tory to its popular invasion of the American- 

 ized portion of the Western world. What the 

 Knickerbocker Club did in the earlier period 

 of the history of the game, in establishing base- 

 ball on a permanent basis, the Excelsior Club 

 followed up by their successful effort to extend 

 its popularity. The advent of the then noted 

 Excelsior Club nine in the cities of Albany, 

 Troy, and Rochester, and afterward in Phila- 

 delphia and Baltimore, not only spreading the 

 fame of that club far and wide, but in popu- 

 larizing the sport, accomplished in one year 

 what a whole decade of ordinary work would 

 not otherwise have done. One result of this 

 tour was a large addition to the number of 

 base-ball clubs outside of the metropolitan 

 home of the game, as was shown by the in- 

 crease of the list of members of the National 

 Association from twenty-five clubs in 1858 to 

 eighty-odd clubs in 1861, the year following 

 the tours of the Excelsior Club. The officers of 

 the first National Association, elected in 1858, 

 were as follow: President, William H. Van 

 Cott ; First Vice-President, Dr. J. B. Jones ; 

 Second Vice-President, Thomas S. Dakin ; Re- 

 cording Secretary, J. Ross Postley; Corre- 

 sponding Secretary, Theodore F/ Jackson; 

 Treasurer, E. H. Brown. 



The playing-rules of the game adopted .by 

 the National Association in 1858 were crude 

 and incomplete as a whole, though they suf- 

 ficed for the purposes of the half-organized 

 style of play in vogue at that period. In the 

 first place, the regulation ball was too heavy 

 and too cumbersome for really skillful field- 

 ing, its legal dimensions admitting of a weight 



of six and a quarter ounces and a circumfer- 

 ence of ten and a quarter inches, an ounce 

 heavier and an inch larger than the ball now 

 in use. Secondly, the bat was unlimited as 

 to its length, a sixty-inch bat being then in 

 use by some players. The pitcher's position 

 was undefined, except that he was not to step 

 in front of a line forty-five feet from the home- 

 base, and this line was twelve feet in length. 

 Then, too, while the batsman was subject to 

 the penalty of called strikes for not hitting at 

 fair balls, the pitcher was not punished at all 

 for a wild delivery of the ball. The boyish 

 rule of the bound-catch of fair balls prevailed, 

 and base-running was checked by the prohibi- 

 tion of taking a base on a fly ball- catch until 

 the ball had been held by the pitcher. But 

 the rules were amended year after year, and 

 the game approached nearer the point of per- 

 fect play ; though it required a whole decade 

 of yearly revisions before base-ball was thor- 

 oughly nationalized, and a really new method 

 of playing it practically developed. 



The Theory of the Game. There is no manly 

 field-game in existence the theory of which is 

 so easy of comprehension as that of base-ball, 

 and hence comes much of its great populari- 

 ty; and yet to excel in the game as a noted 

 expert requires not only the possession of the 

 physical attributes of strength, endurance, and 

 agility, combined with good throwing and run- 

 ning powers, but also the moral and mental 

 forces of courage, pluck, and nerve, and of 

 sound judgment, quick perception, thorough 

 control of temper, and the presence of mind 

 to act promptly in critical emergencies. The 

 simple theory of base-ball is briefly as fol- 

 lows : A tolerably level field being selected, a 

 space of ground is marked out in the form of 

 a diamond with four equal sides, on each cor- 

 ner of which diamond field are placed the four 

 bases, three of which are base-bags, and the 

 fourth home-base of stone. The contest- 

 ants in the game include nine players on each 

 side, who occupy the nine positions in the field, 

 which comprise the pitcher and catcher, the 

 three basemen, the short-stop, and the three 

 out-fielders. When the game begins, one nine 

 take up their positions in the field, and the 

 other side send their men to the bat. The ob- 

 ject of the field side is to put out three of their 

 batting opponents, in which case the latter in 

 turn go to the field. The batting side, on their 

 part, strive to hit the ball pitched to them in 

 such a manner as to enable them to run to 

 bases safely without being put out, and also to 

 score runs, a run being scored every time a 

 base-runner touches the home-base after being 

 at the bat, before being put out, this being 

 done either by a series of hits, or by one long 

 hit that sends the ball beyond the reach of 

 the out-fielders. The batting side send their 

 men to the bat in rotation until three of them 

 are put out, and then the innings-play ends. 

 This goes on until nine innings on each side 

 have been played, and then the side that has 



