1858.7

Newly Reformed Game of Town Ball Played in Cincinnati OH

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags	Newspaper CoverageNewspaper Coverage
Location
City/State/Country:	Cincinnati, OH, United States
Modern Address
Game	Town BallTown Ball
Immediacy of Report	Contemporary
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	Clippings from Cincinnati in 1858 report on the Gymnasts' Town Ball Club match of July 22, 1858: "They played for the first time under their new code of bye laws, which are more stringent than the old rules." The game has five corners [plus a batter's position, making the basepaths a rhombus in general shape], sixty feet apart, meaning 360 feet to score. The fly rule was in effect, and plugging was disallowed, and the rules carefully require that a batsman run every time he hits the ball. The New York Clipper carried at least four reports of Cincinnati town ball play between June and October of 1858. The earliest is in the edition of June 26, 1858 - Volume 6, number 10, page 76. Coverage suggests that teams of eight players were not uncommon, although teams of 13 and 11 were also reported.
Sources
Warning
Comment	An oddity: in a July intramural contest, batter Bickham claimed 58 runs of his team's 190 total, while the second most productive batsman mate scored 30, and 5 of his 10 teammates scored fewer than 6 runs each. One wonders what rule, or what typo, would lead to that result. Edit with form to add a comment
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Has Supplemental Text

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