Talk:Origins of baseball/Archive 1

Delhi Gazette
Delhi Gazette might be Delhi, New York. Or it could be perfectly spurious. Then again it could be the very proof that was needed that Indians invented baseball. And I don't mean Cleveland Indians either... Wetman 04:44, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * The whole Delhi Gazette section should be eliminated. The term base ball apparently was in use prior to 1800, so use of that term in 1825 is not significant. More elaboration of games played prior to 1850 would be interesting, though. The article should make clear that townball was different from the game invented by Cartwright in 1845. Townball came first. Questions the article should answer: How was townball played? How did it develop? How did it differ from rounders? What other similar games were played at that time? How popular was townball? The article should also make it clearer that Abner Doubleday had nothing to do with inventing baseball. Bluelion 05:50, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Sounds like it's not a kosher Delhi. Wahkeenah 00:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Wilson
The link for Thomas Wilson the English puritan who opposed Baseball, is actually a link to the page for Thomas Wilson, the Ziggy cartoonist!

Century mismatch?
Throughout the second half of the 18th century, debates raged over the origins of baseball. To end the arguments and speculation, Spalding organized a panel in 1907.

If Doubleday invented baseball in 1839, how can debates rage about the sport's origins in the 18th century? Shouldn't it be the 19th century? PhoenixV 16:27, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes. But this is obsolete and trivial. May it be deleted? --P64 02:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Doubleday did not invent baseball. Kingturtle 23:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Right. Except it should read 19th century. If it still reads 18th, I'll fix it. Wahkeenah 00:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That question was raised almost two years ago. The current article does not make that statement. No hay problema. Wahkeenah 00:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Stoolball = Three Legs?
National Stoolball Association

Ask them about it. Not that they are historical experts by any means, but they play with road-sign wickets. Nothing like a three legged stool.


 * See Hoerchner (1999). "Stoolball is Alive and Well in Sussex." (Stoolball is featured mainly late in the article.)

Baseball references prior to 1839
Not sure if this should be added or to where. In the Jane Austen novel Northanger Abbey, the heroine prefers both cricket and baseball to books. This was written in 1798. User:MrDenton 19:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * See if you can find the exact quote, and then post it. Wahkeenah 00:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a glaring inconsistency here...

''The English author Jane Austen specifically mentions the game of baseball in her novel, Northanger Abbey, being played by the protagonist, Catherine Moreland. The book was first written in 1798 and revised until publication in 1803''

Another early print reference is Jane Austen's posthumous 1818 novel Northanger Abbey.

So which is it ? AtomBoy 15:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Feel free to research it and find the answer. Wahkeenah 16:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Al Spalding
Spalding did not "invent" the Doubleday myth. Abner Graves of Denver, Colo. did. See Baseball Before We Knew It by David Block for a detailed account of the Graves story. --Leshii 02:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Graves wrote the letter, but Spalding used it to invent the myth. Wahkeenah 20:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand that, but the point is, Spalding would have never associated anything with Doubleday without the Graves letter. --Leshii 02:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure he would have. The letter merely gave him the "evidence" he was looking for. Wahkeenah 12:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I see your point. However, to say that Graves invented the Doubleday myth is incorrect. Spalding used Graves' letter to invent the Doubleday myth. Wahkeenah 12:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In fact, the article states clearly, already, that Graves authored the letter and that that letter was Spalding's sole "evidence". Spalding had a pre-set agenda of "proving" that the game was of American rather than British origin. Wahkeenah 13:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Assessment
This article had many authors. It growed and growed. Oops, that's baseball.

The whole needs reorganization. It reads like drafts by three people one after the other. There are some inconsistencies, of course, but the plague is repetitive coverage, deeper and shallower, here and there. Now I wonder how much should be done before some major reorganization. Before coming to that conclusion, I contributed.

Substantially, I mainly revised the Doubleday/Mills story to match the version by the NBHOFM. That should be checked. Mills not Spalding chaired the commission but Sullivan --the one apparent outsider-- I vaguely recall that he was a nonvoting hardworking Commission secretary.

See also, External links, Notes, References
Formally, I imposed that sequence, which an experienced editor recommended to me. Only two were present but I added the "See also" and "Notes" myself (unplanned but seeming appropriate). Previous editors called the last "Bibliography" not "References" and their usage may be correct here. If anything I have made it more correct although some of my References should be External links.

Essentially, I wanted to get the Pittsfield 1791, Stoolball 1999, and "Ball mit Freystaten" [1796]2001 material onto the 'net where Wikipedians can see it, for it is clear that many have missed it. Have at it. Latecomers, check the history for those links if they have been edited away (but administrators will delete this sentence if it breaks the rules). Seriously, all of the images are elsewhere so this is safe from copyright violation, as far as that goes. --P64 02:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Cricket
A couple weeks ago I added a few American cricket listings to pre-1850s in sports: 1794, 1799, 1820, 1844. I doubt that those are the most important ones. See Talk: Pre-1850s in sports. --P64 02:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Doubleday
The article says that Doubleday attended West Point, so he could not have invented baseball in Cooperstown. from 1843 says (p278)that the academic year at West Point was from September through June, and that in July and August they attended an encampment. During this encampment, those enteering the third year were allowed a furlough if they were in good standing. They had a few hours for recreation on Saturdays. It is unreasonable to assume that Doubleday was never able to leave West Point during his enrollment there as a cadet, so he could not have organized a baseball game in Cooperstown.. Edison 16:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Canada invention theory
I don't think the recent paragraph claiming Canadian inventorship should be in the article as written. I reverted it earlier, but I see that KingTurtle has unreverted it, for an unstated reason. I have no problem with disputing Doubleday as inventor, nor with saying that something very like baseball was played in Canada very early. But the paragraph has several problems: (1) It says "Canada can rightfully claim to have invented not only basketball, but baseball too;" -- the claim to full inventorship seems way too strong a statement, and is contradicted by the rest of the article, which describes a similar game in England and the other (non-Canadian) colonies. It is fine to point out that the game was played in Canada very early, but it seems overly strong to say it was wholly invented there. (2) The additional statement "The participants have been verified, and even their tombstones reviewed to ensure that they were indeed, alive during the claimed period, and that they were resident in or near the claimed venue." is besides the point, and seems irrelevant to the article. I don't think these persons' existence is in dispute; what I would argue with is whether they actually can claim (as is worded here) sole inventorship of the game. I don't want to get into a revert war, so before I take it out again, I would appreciate feedback from others on whether this should remain as is, or whether it should be removed. Mlouns (talk) 07:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I reverted my revert. What happened was that I went to revert your edit, and then decided not to, but it looks like my mouse clicked revert anyway. Sorry about that :) Kingturtle (talk) 12:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Mlouns (talk) 16:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This article currently only mentions Canada in the discussion of the Fred Lillywhite description of the 1859 tour of North America by English cricketers. However, a Beachville, Ontario museum claims that a five base game of baseball was played on June 4, 1838 as recounted in Dr. Adam E. Ford's letter to Sporting Life of April 26, 1886. Apocryphal or not, the letter and the June 4, 1838 game are also mentioned at this web site on Baseball history.  It seems that the claim that baseball may have been played in Ontario in 1838 could be mentioned in this article with two references to back the claim (even if only to refute it - much as is currently done for the Doubleday myth). 69.119.24.98 (talk) 02:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

chronology
I was thinking maybe instead of being embedded in the section: "folk games in england" there could just be a simple chronology of published references. It might include the 1796 rules "Ball mit Freystäten", which I see is an external link but doesn't appear in the body. This SABR page is more informative than the article atm. eg the info that the 1828 "Boy’s Own Book" introduces the 4-base diamond, I'd have thought that was note-worthy: SABR Hakluyt bean (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Possibly of interest
I'm far from an expert, but this BBC story published today might be of interest? - JVG (talk) 10:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That's certainly interesting, but is there an article with more substance to it so that we could incorporate relevant details. The only points of interest in that article are: that Bray documented in his diary playing baseball sometime in 1755; he played the game on Easter; and that he played it with "young ladies". I'd like to know how the game was perceived at the time, when it was played, by whom etc. At any rate, this certainly deserves some mention, though a more thorough verification of the details is warranted. I'd especially be interested in excerpts from the diary. Mind  matrix  14:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Rephrase, please
The Doubleday myth section contains this sentence, which I find almost wholly undecipherable:
 * The myth of Doubleday’s invention of baseball was itself baseball's invention, in the sense that of Al Spalding, a former star pitcher, then club executive, who had become the leading American sporting goods entrepreneur and sports publisher, was largely responsible.

I'd rephrase it for clarity, but I'm not familiar enough with the topic. Cheers, David Iberri (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Does it work? (It isn't hard, given a specific request, if one ignores the impulse to rewrite more generally.) --P64 (talk) 03:08, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Taiping heavenly kingdom
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been some spirit origins of baseball I think. example;field look like Chinese first word [太]. One bat, one ball, people whole written at this word. --Hans yulun lai (talk) 10:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ireland and England
Without using the standard description (where is that?) I have reverted the two edits by 95.145.68.19 last hour. Any relocation of roots from England to Ireland needs references.

The 1884 Gaelic Athletic Association rules for rounders are too late to be useful. --P64 (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Revision needed
Honestly, this is a terrible article. Some information is there but it's broken, not linked together very well. The article doesn't "flow". I think an earlier contributor said it best "It reads like drafts by three people one after the other." There are many missing citations, and in some places it makes references with no context, for example: "A game popular in colonial America was "one hole catapult," which used a catapult like the one used in trap-ball." Trap-ball is mentioned nowhere else in the article, and there are other instances like this one. I am suggesting that the entire article needs to be revised and polished. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.79.20.162 (talk) 02:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

MLB Historian revises baseball history?

 * "MLB Historian" denotes MLB's official historian, which is false.--P64
 * Oops. Thorn was named official historian a few weeks ago. It's the first time they have a real historian.--P64 (talk) 16:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me that the part on Cartwright (et al) needs a rewrite according to this recent article. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/sports/baseball/13thorn.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=John%20Thorn&st=cse Ckruschke (talk) 15:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)Ckruschke


 * See also these related works by John Thorn, author of that New York Times article and chief editor of the Total Baseball encyclopedia series.
 * Thorn (2005), Thorn Pricks: Four Fathers of Baseball.
 * Thorn (revised 2008), Doc Adams.
 * --P64 (talk) 18:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Bud Selig
The sentence about Bud Selig within the Doubleday section is inaccurate and biased. The news article cited as source is also biased and uses an out of context quotation from Mr Selig as its only source. The statement made on this Wikipedia page is not accurately supported by the quotation cited.