Block:"Base-Ball" in 1744; Earliest Reference
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| English Baseball |
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| Data | "Base-Ball" is the title of a page in a children's book that also bears an illustration showing three youths (one holding a ball), and two bases. No bat is shown. A short poem follows: "The Ball once struck off, Away flies the Boy, To the next destin'd Post, And then Home with Joy." |
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| Sources | A Little Pretty Pocket-book, John Newbery, London, 1744 (presumed) |
| Block Notes | No known copies of the 1744 edition have survived. The earliest known copy is a 1760 10th edition in the British Library; it is assumed, but not certain, that the base-ball page originated with the 1744 edition. The MCC Cricket Museum in London owns a children's handkerchief printed with images from A Little Pretty Pocket-book. It includes the base-ball poem and image, but the latter is a redrawn copy of the one that appears in the book. The handkerchief is undated but appears to date from the 18th century. John Newbery was born and raised in the small Berkshire village of Waltham St. Lawrence. |
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