1845c.24

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Future Congressman Plays Ball at Phillips Andover?

Salience Noteworthy
City/State/Country: Andover, MA, US
Game Ball
Age of Players Youth
Text

"The Honorable William W. Crapo remembers walking often to Lawrence [MA] to watch the construction of the great dam.. Now and then we hear, quite casually, or a game of 'rounders' or of a strange rough-and-tumble amusement called football; but . . . there were no organized teams of contests with other schools."

Sources

C. M. Fuess, An Old New England School: A History of Phillips Academy, Andover (Houghton Mifflin, 1917), page 449

Warning

Note that this enigmatic excerpt does not directly attribute to Crapo these references to ballplaying.  

Note that there is reason to ask whether these games, or the ones described in 1853.7, were known as "rounders" when they were played.  As far  as we know, his sources did not use the name rounders, and Fuess may be imposing his assumption, in 1917, that base ball's predecessor was formerly known as rounders.  His book observes, elsewhere, that in warm weather students "tried to improve their skill at the rude game of "rounders," out of which, about 1860, baseball was beginning to evolve."     

 

Comment

If Fuess implies that these observations were made by Crapo, they could date to c. 1845, when the future legislator was a student at Phillips Andover at age 15. Crapo, from southern MA, was a member of the Yale class of 1852. 

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Query

Did Crapo leave behind autobiographical accounts that we could check for youthful ballplaying recollections?  Do we find contemporary usage of the term "rounders" in this area?

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