Touch-ball

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	Curated by Larry McCray and Jeffrey Kittel
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Game	Touch-ball
Game Family	Baseball Baseball
Location
Regions	Britain
Eras	1800s, Derivative
Invented	No
Tags
Description	Baseball is an American modification, and, of course, an improvement of the old English game of rounders; or, as it is called in West Riding, touch-ball. The children in these districts play it without a bat or club; they strike the ball with the open hand, and have posts or stones at the corners of the playground, which correspond to the ‘bases’ of the American game. If the ball was caught before it reached the ground, or the fielder could hit the striker with it before he reached the ‘touch,’ he was out., quoting the London Post 8/1/1874 Source New York Sunday Mercury Date 1874-08-16 00:00:00
Sources	New York Sunday Mercury, August 16, 1874, citing the London Post, August 1, 1874.
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
Comment	West Riding was, until 1986, a large subsection of Yorkshire County, England. "Touch" was evidently a word for "base." This description is included in Richard Hershberger's data contribution of newspaper clippings at https://protoball.org/Clipping:Touch_ball. Thanks, Richard! A half-hearted web search for "touch ball yorkshire" was unproductive on 2/25/2022. Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Can we learn more about touch-ball's rules and history? Edit with form to add a query
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