The term "base-ball" was briefly mentioned in a young adult novel that was serialized in a weekly newspaper for boys. The story was set in a fictitious village in Devonshire, where at one point a boy was trying to explain an earlier deception: “The other day, sir, as I was playing base-ball with some of the fellows, I struck the ball out of bounds, and Carstone, seeing me do it, said he would tell you of it. I begged him not to, and at last he consented, on a condition that I should fag for him during the following week. I joyfully consented, for I had lost a ball out of bounds before, and I didn't know what Doctor Wright would do with me.”
Sources
“Ralph Trevor's Schooldays,” as serialized in The Boy's Champion Paper, London, Oct. 16, 1886, p.69
Block Notes
The boy's fearful response to striking a ball out of bounds possibly meant that the ball was deposited in a body of water or some other inaccessible location.
