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1874 Lee Club location +
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<div>[] "I had always supposed that the balk rule was introduced by the crafters of the New York game, but this passage suggests it began to be practiced at some earlier time." David Block, 19CBB posting, 1/28/2014.</div>
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<p>[] "I wrote in my book [R. Hershberger. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Strike Four</span>, Rowman and Littlefield, 2019, page 37] that the balk rule seemed to be novel to the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Evidently not. While this is two years later, it also is from [nearly] a hundred miles away in Kingston, NY, and presented as a homespun saying from the writer's youth." -- Richard Hershberger, 12/9/2020.</p>
<p>[]<em> Added Local color</em>: "Rondout has been, since 1870, an unincorporated hamlet within the city of Kingston (where I lived for decade; it was called "Rondout" because of its adjoining Roundout Creek, which fed into the Hudson River). The <em>Rondout Freeman</em> in its first incarnation may have indeed lasted till 1847 (founded 1845):<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/">https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/</a>.</p>
<p>"Hudson is a large city about 25 miles north of Kingston, on the other side of the Hudson River, in Columbia County. Today a bridge connects my hometown of Catskill (west bank) with Hudson (east bank). Taghkanic is the proper spelling of the tribe for whom today is named the Taconic Parkway." - John Thorn, email of 12/10/2020.</p>
<p>[]The terms <em>"balk</em>" and <em>"baulk"</em> are both used in period sources. As of December 2020, a search of "balk" fetches 91 hits in Richard Hershberger's generous <span style="text-decoration: underline;">19C Clippings</span> file; a "balk OR baulk" search yields 102 hits. There are no hits for "balk" or "Baulk" in David <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Block's file</span> on English baseball-like games.</p>
<p>[] As of 12/12/2020, Protoball has no other record of the balk prior to 1845. </p>
<p>For a succinct summary of our desultory learning about balks/baulks from 2010 to 2020, see the <strong>Supplementary Text</strong>, below.</p>
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<div><span>[] "Here is another early example of baseball terminology being used to illustrate a non-sports topic."</span></div>
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<div><span>The text appeared in the June 5, 1847 issue of the <em>Roundout Freeman</em> (Roundout was a Hudson River community that has since been swallowed by the town of Kingston).</span></div>
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<div>"I had always supposed that the balk rule was introduced by the crafters of the New York game, but this passage suggests it began to be practiced at some earlier time."</div>
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<div>-- David Block, 11/12/2010</div>
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<div><span><span>[] "I wrote in my book [R. Hershberger. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Strike Four,</span> Rowman and Littlefield, 2019, page 37] that the balk rule seemed to be novel to the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Evidently not. While this is two years later, it also is from [nearly] a hundred miles away in Kingston, NY, and presented as a homespun saying from the writer's youth." -- Richard Hershberger, 19CBB posting, 12/9/2020</span></span></div>
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<div><span><span>[] John Thorn, email of 1/31/2023: "This will testify to the antiquity of the balk rule and give a hint that it meant a feint." -- John Thorn, 1/31/2023 </span></span></div>
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<div>[] As of February 2023, Protoball has no other data on pre-1845 balk rules. Richard Hershberger hasn't found any yet.</div>
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<div>[] Added Local color: "Rondout has been since 1870, an unincorporated hamlet within the city of Kingston (where I lived for decade; it was called "Rondout" because of its adjoining Roundout Creek, which fed into the Hudson River). The <em>Rondout Freeman</em> in its first incarnation may have indeed lasted till 1847 (founded 1845):<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/">https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/</a>.</div>
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<p>"Hudson is a large city about 25 miles north of Kingston, on the other side of the Hudson River, in Columbia County. Today a bridge connects my hometown of Catskill (west bank) with Hudson (east bank). Taghkanic is the proper spelling of the tribe for whom today is named the Taconic Parkway." </p>
<p>-- John Thorn, email of 12/10/2020.</p>
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<div class="date">JULY 28, 1868, THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 23, 1868 On pg. 3 under "Base Ball" are the two box scores of games played in Central Park, each with a very brief, one sentence summary. The first game was played between the Dexter and Henrietta clubs, and the second between the Dexter and Resolute clubs.</div> +
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<div class="gmail_default">George Thompson, 1/13/21: "When New Yorkers said "the Park" in the first half of the 19th century, they meant the Park in front of City Hall. Not a big area, and today at least it's so cluttered with benches and a fountain that it doesn't seem possible to play a game that involves running about.</div>
<div class="gmail_default">I will check my notes to see if there is an indication of whether the Park was more open then."</div>
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<div class="gmail_default">John Thorn, 1/13/21: "certain lines in the 1845 Atlas note were *also* used by Whitman in his now-famous "sundown perambulations of late" note of July 23, 1846!! . . . . Was Whitman the author of the 1845 <em>Atlas </em>note? Did he later plagiarize himself, or an unnamed other?"
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<p><span><strong>Note: </strong>Whitman's text is at </span><a class="ydp55524770yiv9689899570moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/opening-day-e5f9021c5dda" rel="nofollow">https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/opening-day-e5f9021c5dda</a>. Whitman's appreciation of base ball is also shown at [[1846.6]], [[1855.9]], and [[1858.25]].</p>
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<div dir="auto">Richard Hershberger, <span><em>150 years ago in baseball</em>, FB posting 10/29/2020:</span></div>
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<div dir="auto">Chadwick on the improvement of the Chicago Club. They wisely took his advice and switched from a lively to a dead ball. Success inevitably followed.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Much as I enjoy tweaking Chad for this sort of thing, in fairness it was pretty standard in this era. A newspaper would publish helpful advice to the local club. If the club did something that could plausibly be taken as consistent with the helpful advice, the paper would claim credit for the suggestion. Say what you will about modern sports talk radio, even those guys don't usually claim that the GM turns to them for trade ideas.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Does the claim about the deal ball make a lick of sense? It is classic Chad, but there is a kernel of truth. Good and poor fielding teams generally favored a dead or lively ball respectively, on the grounds that a dead ball gave the infielders a chance to show their stuff while a lively ball was more likely to get to the outfield. The Red Stockings revolution was mostly about improved fielding, so they favored a dead ball. As clubs' fielding caught up, they followed suit. The eventual consensus was a relatively dead ball, with later discussions being how live or not, within the range of a relatively dead ball. So as the White Stockings got their act together, it is entirely plausible that they moved to a dead ball. In other words, they didn't get getter because they switched to a dead ball; they switched to a dead ball because they got better. And certainly not because Chadwick convinced them. </div>
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