America's National Game. Albert G. Spalding
can get the ball and hit you with it, you count one. If I hit you with the ball before you get back to your place, you're out. See?"
They try it; find it works well, and the third stage of the game is developed in "Barn-Ball" — with Two Boys, a Bat and a Ball.
Again, it happens sometimes that it is not altogether convenient to play barn-ball. The game requires a barn. Now, while most boys may usually be depended upon to have a large and varied assortment of things in pocket, it sometimes occurs that a barn is not one of them; so barn-ball is out of the question. Tom and Dick are coming from school with Harry, They tell the new boy about the ball and the large amount of fun there is wrapped up in it. They dilate upon the proficiency they have already attained in throwing, catching and batting, and patronize Harry a trifle perhaps, because of his inexperience.
"Why can't we have a game of barn-ball, now?" asks the unsophisticated Harry.
" Oh, don't you know nuthin'?' There isn't any barn," answers Dick.
"I'll tell you what we can do," says the inventive Tom. " Come on, Dick; you and I will throw and catch, just as we did the other day, and Harry can stand between us with the club. Now, Dick, when I throw to you, Harry can face me and try to hit the ball, and when you throw to me he can turn your way and strike at it. If Harry misses the ball, and either of us catches it before it hits the ground or on the first bound, he's out and the fellow who catches him out takes the club. If he hits the ball far enough to get to that rock over there and back before one of us gets the ball and hits him with it, he counts one tally; but if one of us hits him with the ball, he's out. See.'"' And thus the game of "One Old Cat " was born, and the fourth step has been evolved, with Three Boys, a Bat, a Ball and a Base.
The evolution of the next step in the game of Baseball was natural and easy. It was a very simple sequence of One Old Cat. It grew out of the fact that Jim came along and wanted to play with the others.
" That's dead easy," says the resourceful Tom. " We'll just add another base, get another club, and there you are. All the difference there will be is that when either one hits the ball you must both run and exchange places. If the ball is thrown and hits either one of you, that one must give way to the fellow who threw it." The game of Two Old Cat was thus developed in order to include Four Boys, Two Bats, Two Bases and a Ball.
By this time the game of Baseball is becoming popular. Next Saturday, when Tom, Dick, Harry and Jim go out on the commons to have a game of Two Old Cat, Frank and Ned join them with hopes of getting into the game.
"No use," says the pessimistic Dick; "only four can play at this game. You see, we've got two catchers and two hitters now, and that's all we can have."
" Oh, I don't know," says Tom. " What's the matter with having a three-cornered game? then we all can play."
The game is tried three-cornered. It works all right, and Three Old Cat, with Six Boys, Three Bats, Three Bases and a Ball has added another step in the evolution of our American game.
The interest increases. Eight Boys want a chance to play at the same time. An equilateral ground is chosen, about forty feet each way. The sport is tried out in that form and is found to meet the purpose. But now the game is becoming cumbersome. It is slow and unsatisfactory in some respects. The multiplication of players introduces elements of discord. Dissensions arise. No two agree as to the proper way of playing the game. There are no printed rules available for the village commons. Interest, meanwhile, is growing, and more and still more players are clamoring for admission. The game of Four Old Cat has been developed all right, but, unlike the feline from which its name has been derived, the game is never a howling success; but it does afford pastime for Eight Boys, Four Bats, Four Bases and a Ball.
In Two, Three and Four Old Cat games,' each individual player had his own score, and the players did not engage collectively as teams. Each tally was credited to the striker only. Every base gained by the striker was counted as a tally for himself alone. At the close of the game, if any record was kept, the player who was found to have the greatest number of tallies was declared the victor. Thus, in the days when a game which would accommodate no more than eight players would suffice, the "Old Cat," or "Individual Score," system of ballplaying answered the purpose; but as the pastime became more popular, and more boys wanted to play, it became necessary to devise a new form of the game which would admit a greater number of participants and at the same time introduce the competitive spirit that prevails in teamwork.
We are indebted to Four Old Cat for the square-shaped ball field, with a base at each corner. A natural step was then made by eliminating the four throwers and four batters of the Four Old Cat game, and substituting in place of them one thrower, or pitcher, and one batter. The pitcher was stationed in the center of the square and the striker, or batter, had his position at the middle of one of the sides of the square. In this form of the game, two sides, or teams, were chosen, one known as the Fielding Side, and the other as the Batting Side. The game was known as " Town Ball," and later, that is, in the decade beginning with 1850, it came to be known as the " Massachusetts Game of Baseball," in contradistinction to the " New York Game of Baseball," as played by the Knickerbocker Club of New York City in the decade of the '40s. Thus Town Ball came in vogue and made another step in the evolution of the American game of Baseball.
In this game were present many of the elements of the game of Baseball as we know it to-day — and then some. It accommodated thirty or more players and was played on town-meeting days, when everybody in the township took a hand. Sometimes there were so many playing that the grounds were full of fielders, and but for the large number and their indiscriminate selection, the sport might have developed more skill. The square field of Four Old Cat, but with the side lines lengthened to sixty instead of forty feet, obtained in Town Ball. Batsmen were out on balls caught on fly or first bound, and base runners were out by being " soaked " while running by a thrown ball. Town Ball was played quite generally throughout New England. It had, as before stated, fifteen or more players on a side, Catcher, Thrower, Four Bases, a Bat and a Ball.
The final step in the evolution of the game was the adoption of the diamond-shaped field and other points of play incorporated in the system devised by Abner Doubleday, of Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, and subsequently formulated into a code of playing rules adopted by the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, of New York, upon its organization in 184)5. The number of players participating in a game was limited to eighteen — nine on a side; a Pitcher, a Catcher, a Short Stop, First, Second and Third Basemen, Right, Center, and Left Fielders, Four Bases, Bat and Ball, and was the game of Baseball substantially as played to-day.
The following, from the Memphis Appeal, of date unknown to the writer, is a fair and interesting description of the game as played in the days of long ago:
" Time will not turn backward in his flight, but the mind can travel back to the days before Baseball, or at least to the days before Baseball was so well known and before it had become so scientific. There were ball games in those days, in town and country, and the country ball game was an event. There were no clubs. The country boy of those days was not gregarious. He preferred flocking by himself and remaining independent. On Saturday afternoons the neighborhood boys met on some well cropped pasture, and whether ten or forty, everyone was to take part in the game. Self-appointed leaders divided the boys into two companies by alternately picking one until the supply was exhausted. The bat, which was no round stick, such as is now used, but a stout paddle, with a blade two inches thick and four inches wide, with a convenient handle dressed onto it, was the chosen arbiter. One of the leaders spat on one side of the bat, which was honestly called ' the paddle,' and asked the leader of the opposition forces, ' Wet, or dry? ' The paddle was then sent whirling up into the air, and when it came down, whichever side won went to the bat, while the others scattered over the field. The ball was not what would be called a National League ball, nowadays, but it served every purpose. It was usually made on the spot by some boy offering up his woolen socks as an oblation, and these were raveled and wound round a bullet, a handful of strips cut from a rubber overshoe, a piece of cork or almost anything, or nothing, when anything was not available. The winding of this ball was an art, and whoever could excel in this art was looked. upon as a superior being. The ball must be a perfect sphere and the threads