Block:English Baseball in London on August 10 1888

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English Baseball

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Data	A reference to “base-ball” appeared in a brief and mildly amusing observation about kissing in the “Society” column of a London magazine. “Men have an idea that their kisses are appreciated. They are most immensely mistaken. The average man gives a kiss just as he throws a base-ball—with too much force. It needs to be as delicate as a rose-leaf. Almost a memory in a second. It need not suggest a postage-stamp or a porous plaster.”
Sources	Bow Bells Weekly: a Magazine of General Literature and Art for Family Reading, (London), Aug. 10,1888, p. 86
Block Notes	Mentions of baseball in this type of context and appearing in London publications are normally allusions to the American game, but considering that the writer of this example was obviously a woman, and that her complaint of too much force implies the presence of soaking, I suggest that this, more likely than not, was a reference to the original English game.
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