1836.5
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Yanks and British Play Baserunning Game with Plugging . . . in Canton, China
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | Canton, China |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | |
| Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
| Age of Players | AdultAdult |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | [A] "One day it occurred to me that . . . we might have a Game of ball . . . . Well I had bats and a ball made, and we got up a sort of game; the next day some of the English found their way down to us and we have since had several games." [B] In his March 1836 letter home, from Canton, China, the 23-year-old John Murray Forbes referred to playing ball with Englishmen there. He asked his wife to imagine him "throwing the ball at this man, running like mad to catch it, or, when my innings come, running the rounds jumping breast high to avoid being hit, or falling down to the ground for the same purpose." He also noted: “We have been very steady at our ball exercise. Is it not funny the idea of a parcel of men going out to play like schoolboys? [ . . .] The English have one trait in which they differ widely from us; they keep up their boyish games through life. [. . .] Cricket and Ball of all sorts is played in England by men of all ages.” [C] In a passage from his 1899 memoir about the same incident, Forbes reminded readers who were no longer familiar with retiring baserunners by "plugging" them that a runner could be "pelted by the hard ball as he tried to run in, for it was then the fashion to throw at the runner, and if hit he was out for the inning."
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| Sources | [A] David Block, Pastime Lost (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), page 237. Block sites Brian Turner, Cogswell's Bat, pp 65-66 (source needed). [B] Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., Letters (Supplementary) of John Murray Forbes [George H. Ellis Co., Boston, 1905] volume 1, page 25. [C] Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1899] volume 1, page 86. Submitted by John Bowman, 7/16/2004 and supplemented by Brian Turner, 7/23/2013.
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| Warning | |
| Comment | John Bowman adds: "Forbes was a Massachusetts man, and one supposes that when he played baseball at the Round Hill school in Northampton (see item #1823.6 above) , 'soaking' or 'plugging' was then a routine aspect of the game."
Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | Can we clarify what game Forbes played (rounders? round ball?). Reader Reply: I would suggest that this is reasonably persuasive evidence that Brits and Yanks were playing effectively the same game, under whatever name. No mention of rules disputes or confusion arises; and one gets the distinct impression, in parallel with ca. 1830s rules descriptions, that both national contingents set to without fuss and that there was little if any difference between English "rounders" and American "X-ball." --WCHicklin (date unspecified). Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| Submitted by | John Bowman, Brian Turner |
| Submission Note | Emails of 7/16/2004 and 7/23/2013, respectively |
| Has Supplemental Text |
1836.5 Yanks and British Play Baserunning Game with Plugging . . . in Canton, China"
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