Block:English Baseball in London on December 7 1839
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| Data | The term "base-ball" was cited in an entry from an British sports encyclopedia (An Encyclopædia of Rural Sports) entitled “Games of the Ball” that was previewed in an Irish newspaper. After describing hand-ball as as an appropriate game for young people of both sexes, the author of the encyclopedia added: "There are few of us of either sex but have engaged in base-ball since our majority; and the gravity of middle age is pleasingly broken in upon by the feats of pat-ball, as we see it practised among our children." |
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| Sources | Southern Reporter and Cork Commercial Courier, Dec. 7, 1839, p.4 (excerpted from An Encyclopædia of Rural Sports, by Delabere P. Blaine, London, 1840, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, p. 131 |
| Block Notes | The earliest edition of the encyclopedia is dated 1840, yet the excerpt taken from it appeared in December, 1839, suggesting that the book was released earlier than its publishing date or that the newspaper received an advance copy. The name “pat-ball” is a generic term for games in which two players strike a ball back and forth between them, and later in the 19th century was applied derogatorily to lawn tennis by some racquets and court tennis players. |
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