tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985668569918053928.post82644861265144677..comments2024-01-24T05:19:09.805-06:00Comments on This Game Of Games: The Protoball Chronology Has Been UpdatedJeffrey Kittelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02367989375750209078noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985668569918053928.post-86047535234851867822009-01-14T14:16:00.000-06:002009-01-14T14:16:00.000-06:00The Courier (6/24/1858) specificially says "Base B...The Courier (6/24/1858) specificially says "Base Ball Club." Late last night I also found an earlier article from the Courier (6/3/1858) that mentions "Ball Club" and "the old and popular pasttime of 'Base Ball.'" <BR/><BR/>I'm posting both articles sometime this week but I'll email them to you.Jeffrey Kittelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02367989375750209078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985668569918053928.post-10836283468562071132009-01-14T13:47:00.000-06:002009-01-14T13:47:00.000-06:00Did the piece in the Alton Weekly Courier use the ...Did the piece in the Alton Weekly Courier use the term "base ball" or "town ball"? Porter's Spirit undoubtedly was sent the item by the club. If the Alton paper used "town ball" this would suggest that Porters normalized the vocabulary.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985668569918053928.post-57514457845407735562009-01-13T19:30:00.000-06:002009-01-13T19:30:00.000-06:00Today, I just found an article in the Alton Weekly...Today, I just found an article in the Alton Weekly Courier, dated June 24, 1858, that contains all of the information from the July 17, 1858 Spirit of the Times piece except for the stuff about the club organizing in May. As of right now the earliest reference to the New York game in Alton that I can find is from 1867 (and that post is scheduled to go up on Friday, I think). Still digging through the Alton papers. There are references to baseball in the papers in 1866 but nothing specific to a club in Alton. <BR/><BR/>I don't know a great deal about the history of Alton but it is located near the confluence of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Illinois river which would have made it relatively easy to reach during the period we're talking about. I'm not sure how big it was relative to StL but it was certainly the biggest city on the east side of the river and probably the biggest in Southern Illinois. I have no doubt that there was a large immigrant community there in the 1850's.Jeffrey Kittelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02367989375750209078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985668569918053928.post-66871424483324645162009-01-13T18:33:00.000-06:002009-01-13T18:33:00.000-06:00The Alton cite is also interesting in that it is o...The Alton cite is also interesting in that it is one of a mere handful of examples of the term "base ball" used in the part of the country where I would expect "town ball". (I know of no such examples in reverse.) One of the others is from Quincy, Illinois. I don't read too much into this. One should expect some noise amid the signal, and I am surprised there isn't more of it. At most, it suggests that this region got immigration from various directions, which I doubt is much of a surprise.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com