Baseball Before We Knew It

David Block is a baseball historian and antiquarian. He is the author of Pastime Lost: The Humble, Original, and Now Completely Forgotten Game of English Baseball (Nebraska, 2019). Tim Wiles is the former director of research for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and a coauthor of Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."John Thorn is the official historian of Major League Baseball and the author of Baseball in the Garden of Eden.

List of Illustrations Foreword to the New Edition by John Thorn Foreword by Tim Wiles Preface to the New Edition Preface Acknowledgments for the New Edition Acknowledgments Base, as in Baseball A Pocket(book)ful of Miracles 1. Uncertainty as to the Paternity 2. Rounders, Schmounders 3. Abner and Albert, the Missing Link by Philip Block Playing Ball at Camp Doubleday 4. Was Abner Graves Telling the Truth? 5. Rules of Baseball: The Prequel 6. How Slick Were the Knicks? 7. In the Beginning 8. Stools, Clubs, Stobs, and Jugs 9. Traps and Cats 10. It's Starting to Look Familiar 11. Baseball before We Knew It Early Baseball Bibliography: Roots of the Game in Pre-Civil War Literature Appendix 1: Constitutions and By-Laws Appendix 2: Some Comments on Sporting Journals of the 1850s Appendix 3: "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball": Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic by Thomas L. Altherr Appendix 4: The Letters of Abner Graves Appendix 5: Dr. Adam E. Ford's Letter to Sporting Life Appendix 6: Battingball Games by Per Maigaard Appendix 7: Ten Surviving Descriptions of Baseball-like Games Written and Published before 1845 Notes Principal Sources Consulted Index

"Given North American baseball fans' nearly inexhaustible appetite for the arcana of their favourite sport, astonishingly few scholars have ever undertaken the detailed historical and anthropological research to find out where the game actually began. . . . Now, through painstaking bibliographic and archival research, on display in his extensive appendices, Block has established . . . the true forerunner of American baseball. . . . By pushing beyond baseball's reputed origins in an English children's game, David Block has discovered the game's true origins in an even older English game."-Warren Goldstein, Times Literary Supplement "The suggestion that America's Game might have originated somewhere besides America so 'inflamed passions and patriotism,' writes David Block, that the idea still burns us. . . . Block has produced a deliciously researched feast that lays this controversy to rest. . . . Block has assembled such a rich pile of evidence for the game's European origins that one might wonder why there ever was a controversy. . . . Block's book is a perfect delight. He has unearthed magnificent medieval manuscripts . . . That show that baseball is just the latest in a very long line of stick-and-ball games."-Charles Hirshberg, Sports Illustrated "Pastime Lost is required reading for anyone interested in learning more about the early origins of baseball."-Jason Cannon, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture "Baseball, Block convincingly argues, was not a product of rounders, and its essential form had already been established by the late 18th century. Where, then, did baseball come from? In search of an answer, Block, a retired systems analyst and an antiquarian book collector, has attacked baseball's literary record with methodical zeal. The result is a joyfully discursive romp through the history of ball sports and a compelling new theory of the game's origins."-New York Times Book Review "Baseball before We Knew It is a rare piece of historical research that transforms the historical landscape. It is also elegantly written and lightened with a subtle humor. No one who makes any claim to being a baseball historian or a student of the game can go forward without Block's stunning work."-Sports Literature Association "Beneficial, Bountiful and Believable for baseball curators, and in the wheelhouse for a publisher like University of Nebraska Press, whose goal is making baseball stay alive with modern readable material that's been thoroughly researched, appendix-ed and indexed."-fartheroffthewall.com