1858.14

Adult Play [Finally!] Signaled in New Manual for Cricket and Base Ball

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags
Location	New EnglandNew England
City/State/Country:	Boston, MA, United States
Modern Address
Game
Immediacy of Report	Contemporary
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	Manual of Cricket and Base Ball [Boston, Mayhew and Baker],. Only four of this manual's 24 pages are given over to base ball, the newly composed rules for the MA game. Block: "Its historical significance lies in the fact that this was the first treatment of baseball as a pastime for adults in a book made available to the general public."
Sources	David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 218-219
Warning
Comment	The need for a manual may have been first expressed in the 14 "X" letters, an anonymous series of correspondence from "X" to Porter's Spirit of the Times. The writer mentioned that the purpose of the letters, which examined prominent teams and players and gave instructions for playing and for operating a team, was to spur the publication of a manual. The first letter appeared on October 24, 1857. Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
External Number
Submitted by
Submission Note	Comment by Robert Tholkes 11/6/2013
Has Supplemental Text

Comments