Deutschland, Deutschland…über base–ball? Cheerio!
Does ‘America’s pastime’ have its roots in Europe?
The ghost of Abner Doubleday is not going to like this one bit:
Did an 18th century physical education researcher in a small hamlet in Germany become the first person to actually put in writing the rules of baseball, based on a game being played in England?
According to an article written in 2001 by David Block for the Society for American Baseball Research, the answer is yes. Many years before the first rules of baseball appeared in English, German youth, parents and educators were reading about “das englische Base–ball.”
The source of these rules is “a detailed book on games and sports by the German physical education pioneer Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths,” according to Block. He entitled it “Ball mit Freystaten (oder das englische Base-ball),” which literally translates to “ball with free station, or English base–ball.”
So how did the British get involved in “our” game — and when?
“Even though the book was intended for a German audience, there is no indication that the game was actually played in Germany. However, the fact that Guts Muths, working from a small town in Germany, was familiar enough with baseball to include it in his book suggests that the game was already well established in England,” Block writes.
To be sure, the early brand of baseball described by Guts Muths only partly resembles the modern game. The pitcher stood only five or six steps from the batter and lobbed the ball toward him in a manner probably not unlike that of slow–pitch softball. Home base was an area rather than a spot, and all the players of the batting team gathered there, not just the player batting.
The bat itself has a flat face on one end and is only two feet long, the number of bases varies with the number of players and the batting team is retired after only one “out.”
However, the rest of “das Englische Base–ball” will sound very familiar to any modern fan.
A pitcher throws to a batter, who gets three attempts to put the ball in play. Once hitting the ball, the batter tries to run counter–clockwise around the bases without being put out. The goal is to make a complete circuit of the bases and return “home.”
Outs are made by catching the ball, touching the runner with the ball or throwing to a base.
Perhaps the only thing more startling than finding baseball’s rules codified by a German writer in the 18th century is the fact that the book itself is not all that rare. Several copies exist in American libraries and even more Europe, according to Block. Further, other authors have written of other forerunners to America’s pastime from Europe and even Africa.
For more information on this, visit the Society for American Baseball Research site, or send e–mail to old_ball_game@hotmail.com.