1849.3

NY Game Shown to "Show Me" State of MO

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags
Location	MissouriMissouri
City/State/Country:	Independence, MO, United States
Modern Address
Game	Base BallBase Ball
Immediacy of Report	Contemporary
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	"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 23^rd 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.'"
Sources	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.
Warning	Some scholars have expressed doubt about the authenticity of this diary entry, which differs from an earlier type-script version.
Comment	Edit with form to add a comment
Query	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? Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
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Has Supplemental Text

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