Thursday, August 12, 2021

HoraceClarke66: No, it didn't start in a cornfield

From the tear-stained desk of HoraceClarke66... 

 Just to riff off El Duque’s excellent skewering of Fox Sports’ fake nostalgia broadcast—baseball in a cornfield!—it’s time once and for all to put paid to the idea that baseball, baseball as we know it, has pastoral roots.

 Chasing exactly when and where people started playing bat-and-ball games is a fool’s errand. It probably started somewhere around the time we first moved out on the savannah and left behind our previously favored pastimes, swinging from trees and not being eaten.

 Ancient hieroglyphics depict Egyptians with bats playing at something called seker-hemat, around 2500 B.C. Berbers in the 1930s were observed playing ta kurt om el mahag, or “the ball of the pilgrim’s mother”—a game one historian theorized was brought to North Africa in the fifth century A.D. by the Vandals. Medieval Normans played grande théque, while their French cousins played la balle empoisonee, or “poisoned ball,” the Germans had schlagball, and the Finns played pesapällo.

 Countless other bat-and-ball games were played under different rules and different names in England. The whole welter of English and continental games followed the colonists over to America. Hired Polish laborers were playing “long ball” in the Jamestown settlement by 1609.

 I’m not making this up.

 Nor was baseball invented one day by Abner Doubleday along the banks of the Glimmerglass. Doubleday, sort of the Forrest Gump of the 19th century, had an amazing life—but he did not invent baseball.

 Abner’s best friend for 20 years was the president of the National League…but he even he admitted that Doubleday never so much as spoke of baseball (“Hey, you know that sport you run?  Well—”).

 Doubleday himself wrote that, “In my outdoor sports, I was addicted to”—drum roll, please—“topographical work…”

 No, baseball as we know it was invented by these guys, the o.g. New York Knickerbockers. 


  While they may look like a bunch of Mennonites on a picnic, they were mostly Manhattan “merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks, insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.”

 As anyone who knows anything about the expanses of American agriculture can tell you, it would’ve been damned hard to get 18 guys together regularly for a game. In the U.S., instead, the roots of the modern game were urban.

 In the New York area, it was played on vacant lots and the remaining swathes of grass to be found anywhere in the city. Or at the Elysian Fields, a sort of 19th-century amusement park over in Hoboken.

 The Knickerbockers, contrary to some accounts, were far from the first New York baseball club, but they were the great consolidators of what became known as “the Knickerbocker Rules,” the heart of “the New York Game”—or modern baseball.

 This was thanks mainly to the guy in the first row, middle, with the James Harden beard and the cigar. Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, graduate of Yale and of Harvard Medical School, would do more than any other single individual to invent the game we love.

 Doc played everywhere on the field save for pitcher—No curveball? But then there weren’t curveballs yet—and personally invented the position of shortstop.

 As secretary of the Knickerbocker Club and a player well into his 40s, Adams also invented the relay throw, horsehide baseballs, and the called strike. He also pushed through 9 men on a team and 9 innings in a game, secured bases set 90 feet apart, the pitcher’s mound in the middle of the diamond, and “the fly-game,” in which you had to catch a ball in the air to get an out, instead of being able to catch it on the first bounce.

 And none of it had anything to do with cornfields, or Iowa.

 To Doc Adams, the fly guy who invented the fly game, right here in New York City!

110 comments:

  1. Thank you Hoss as always.

    So I'm watching the pregame and they do a piece on a guy who overcame all kinds of hardship to get his one at bat a la Moonlight Graham. And the panel --A rod, Big Steroid, I mean Big Papi are all emotional and talking about why "we're here". It's the love of the game.

    And then they go right to "Win some of Big Papi's Money" and they whip out a briefcase with 10K in cash in it.

    Like I say, sometimes the jokes write themselves.

    Doug K.

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  2. by the way having the players come through the corn field is Very cool. even for the cynic in me

    Doug K

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  3. Costner is only 66? Man, that must have been a tough life! He looks like shit! I've seen enough!

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  4. OK, tuned into the Master via MLB mediacenter (or whatever the assholes call it now).

    The feed for the Yankee game is EASILY 10 dB lower than the other broadcasts. These fuckers are trying to get me to listen to the Fox whores.

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  5. The logo is the throwback nike swoosh. (officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971)

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  6. YES hasn't let them travel all year. They say Covid, We say cheap bastards.

    Doug K.

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  7. Lots of corn and it ain't in the outfield.

    Lynn is a fat toad.

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  8. Game must be important..Joe Buck is there…

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  9. You're forgetting the reference in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: “It was not very wonderful that Catherine . . . should prefer cricket, base-ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books.”

    See the following for more: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/03/how-jane-austen-played-baseball

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  10. This is nauseating. Everyone who said how odious it would be was right. And the Fox announcers are annoying. OK, Buck is annoying.

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  11. Damn fucking right it's a New York game.

    Buck is The Worst. The key grip should punch him really really hard in the face.

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  12. Anon, I was the copywriter for the International Baseball Association account for a while. I looked up all the history and found what everyone here has been saying. The Knickerbockers codified this game and made baseball what it is. They do not get enough credit to this day.

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  13. Doug K,

    You are correct.

    Plus, I want a DNA test on Joe Buck. He can't be Jack's child.

    The volume issue is really irritating me.

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  14. JM,

    You are our more urbane version of Forrest Gump.

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  15. I forgot the Sox got Kimbrel. I hate him and his stupid pre-pitch pose. Meant to do a post titled Three Days of the Condor but forgot.

    Shit. Haney sucking already.

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  16. Why can't the Yankees get pitchers like Lance Lynn? I swear it was his sister Amber that pitched for the Yankees.

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  17. Alternate ending to Field of Dreams ...

    "Hey, Dad, you wanna ... have a catch?"

    "Wait ... what did you say?"

    "Have a catch?"

    "Dammit, kid, how many times did I tell you, it's PLAY CATCH! Nobody says HAVE a catch! You sound like a nerd! No wonder I felt like working late all those nights and had the drinking problem."

    "But Dad ... I just ..."

    "Just stop. You ruined the moment."

    [turns and walks to cornfield]

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  18. BBB,

    Playing Ray Kinsella: W.C Fields!

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  19. Don't really like Mr. Haney, but gotta give him credit for the stirrup socks.

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  20. ALL RISE YOU FUCKING CORN FIELD FUCKERS!!!

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  21. On a completely unrelated issue, Gallo sucks so determinedly.

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  22. Winnie,

    Are you summoning the children of the corn?

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  23. That visit to the mound was effective.

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  24. It's Iowa. Heaney must've worn himself out last night fucking pigs with the locals.

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  25. I thought 1919 was supposed to be the Dead Ball Era?

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  26. It amazes me how Cashman is able to get guys like Heaney & Gallo. He certainly is ahead of everyone when evaluating talent

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  27. My friend is 9 rows back behind home plate. Here he is in the corn field.

    https://www.facebook.com/744749323/posts/10159430766294324/

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  28. Fucking Heany...why is he on the team???

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  29. Instead of getting angry at Andrew Heaney, a bad pitcher who is pitching badly, we should be angry at the GM who decided to add this bad pitcher to our rotation during a playoff push.

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  30. 200M payroll and you get a better start out of a Loogie than a guy you traded for

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  31. ZacharyA? We "should" be angry at the GM? [blink blink] We? Us? The Commentariat should be angry at the GM?

    Yeeaaahhh, I'm pretty sure we've got that covered.

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  32. Mr. Haney has managed to *increase* his ERA.

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  33. Wow, that must've been quite a night with the piggies.

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  34. When do they Baltimore again?

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  35. Don't worry, Stanton will hit a 7 run homer next inning. At least he'll look like he's trying to.

    Winnie, what do you have against porcine dating? It worked in Deliverance.

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  36. If Moonlight Graham faced Andrew Heaney, he'd have hit a home run.

    ... and I'm talking about the Burt Lancaster version of Graham, the 90-year-old doctor, not the young kid who hit the sac fly.

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  37. Three out of five starters out and desperation sends us to Hiney. But why did Boone leave him in after the third?


    Oh yeah, bullpen fried because three starters are out.

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  38. Didn't we have a bullpen game yesterday? Who calls for a bullpen game the day before Haney pitches? That's just begging to be defeated.

    Doug K.

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  39. Does it really matter, this team sucks

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  40. As someone pointed out on Twitter, the gambling commercials during a 1919 White Sox throwback game are a nice touch.

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  41. What the fuck is this guy doing on a major league mound?

    This is a major league mound - isn’t it?

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  42. Hey, Gardy hits one. Fitting, because he joined the Yanks in 1919, I believe.

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  43. Heany..14 innings pitched...8 HR. That's about 5 1/2 HR per game.

    Career ERA of 4.70. What a steal!

    So much for the analytics team finding that hidden gem no one else noticed.

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  44. "gambling commercials during a 1919 White Sox throwback game are a nice touch."

    Do they have a booth at the game?

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  45. Yeah, not a good find. But this is not a bad team. A decimated team, but not bad. We need to get our pitchers and position guys back. And somehow survive until that happens.

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  46. Oh, now I get it - Boooone wanted to keep Hanky in the game for five innings so he could get credit for the loss!

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  47. Gallo walks. He does that a lot.

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  48. Gardy will be introduced at old timers day as the last living teammate of Babe Ruth.

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  49. Knocked out Lynn. He can hit the buffet early.

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  50. And there is poor Mr. Wade, batting ninth in spite of the fact that he is hitting higher than five others in the current lineup.

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  51. Yankees on track out their usual 14 times a game.

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  52. I don't think we're giving Cashman enough credit.

    The White Sox are a future playoff opponent. Clearly Cashman doesn't want them seeing our good pitchers before then.

    Doug K.

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  53. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Thanks for that pearl Doug

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  54. It’s wonderfully optimistic that you think the Yankees will make the playoffs

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  55. Doug K, who would that be?

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  56. Wade bunts and gets a hit. Nice.

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  57. Hoss, you da boss. Thanks for setting the record straight.

    I gave up my cable a few years ago. I did have a digital antenna and used to be able to get major networks, but it seems as though I cannot anymore. "Cannot decode signal" keeps coming up.

    I don't need no stinking "content" from behind no stinking "paywall."

    If we ever become contenders again, I will consider paying through the nose for NY cable TV. In the meantime, I'll get my info the old fashioned way - via high speed internet connection.

    Fuck the cornfield, fuck Joe Buck, fuck the field, fuck big money MLB, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

    Such a good word.

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  58. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpV8D8K9JI

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  59. Proper English. You bet.

    I didn't expect to sweep the Sox. They're good, and we have half a team

    But Hiney...my God.

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  60. Rufus,

    I enjoyed that more than I fucking thought I would.

    Doug K.

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  61. Maybe we shouldn't expect to win any games at all against the White Sox.

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  62. Gallo needs to get on, so Stanton can disappoint us again.

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  63. Now Stanton can strike out.

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  64. Can't blame Judge. He did everything he could.

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  65. holy crap!!!! Stanton???/

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  66. OK. Now, who's going to get the blown save?

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  67. Stanton hit one on the clutch. Must be the Field of Dreams magic.

    Maybe we should plant corn in the Bronx.

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  68. That’s the deep cornhole they dug themselves outta,

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  69. Maybe it should be Field of Weed...

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  70. Ranger,

    Good one.

    Doug K.

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  71. Now Britton breaks our hearts, right?

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  72. Why do all the white sox uniforms look like they're urine stained?

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  73. I really did not want to call that.

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  74. Pocono Steve is clearly an astute student of recent history. Of course the Yanks were going to blow it.



    Fuckers.

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  75. As I stated a couple of hours ago: I refused to watch this abysmal, pathetic enterprise.

    But I did switch over a few times (audio muted) to catch a glimpse during commercials while watching the evening news line-up.

    From what I saw, I can add to the list of Firsts for the State of Iowa:

    - First person(s) of colour on live Iowa television
    - First person(s) of colour seen cursing on live Iowa television
    - First white man with a ponytail seen on Iowa television

    And a special shout-out to Hoss for reintroducing me to the word “yutz”. I hadn’t heard it in years, and will actively strive to add it to my regular vocabulary (although it’s kind of untranslatable).

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  76. And the Yankees have their worst, most soul-crushing loss of the season


    ... for the eighth time this year.

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  77. Back to the cold comfort of fourth place.

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  78. That was hilarious, guys. Sorry I missed the thread—but not most of the game.

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  79. Rufus, was W.P. Kinsella's name even mentioned tonight? I mean, he only thought up the whole story and wrote it and everything.

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    Replies
    1. Wait, didn't Kevin Costner write it? I mean, that's the vibe I got from the broadcast.

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  80. Oh, and Rufus? I summoned the Children of the Corn yesterday, but obviously, they took the night off. They did issue a press release:

    "We, the Children of the Corn may be violent, sadistic, psychotic Satan worshippers—but we do have principles. Today's Fox spectacle was so grotesquely hypocritical—filling a story that concerned the worst gambling scandal in the game's history with gambling ads—was unconscionable.

    "Throughout the pre-game ceremonies, Fox's commentators acted as if the Field of Dreams story was real, and that they were really memorializing dead people—as if the game were being played at Ground Zero. It's tripe—and we the Children of the Corn rest assured that our work was already done for us this evening. Nobody involved with putting that on could possibly have a soul that hasn't already been pledged to the Big Guy."

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  81. This game was kind of like if "Field of Dreams" ended with the catcher telling Kevin Costner, "Fuck off kid, I never liked you" and then the whole farm burns to the ground.

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  82. Not the ending that you'd want. Or as Jimi Hendrix once put it, "it's enough to make me get up and, ah, SCREAM"!!!!!

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  83. JM -- So the International Baseball Association like to hire people who always miss the point? I was not claiming that Jane Austen invented or codified baseball--merely pointing out that some variant by that name extended back to nineteenth-century England.

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  84. The Cashman regime is unaccountably reincarnating the inept Yankee front offices of the eighties and early nineties: distrusting and demoralizing and ruining young talent while overestimating and over-relying on guys who were good two to five years ago but aren't anymore, or guys who were SUPPOSED to be good two to five years ago but aren't anymore, with a sprinkling of washed-up veterans. So Gardner, with a disastrous .626 OPS, is batting SECOND? So Gallo, whose entire offensive output with the Yankees seems to strikeouts or walks, is ensconced forever in left field; so Odor, who has always sucked, is guaranteed to start every game, even when he has to play third, where he is atrocious offensively, and even though his OPS is barely any higher than Tyler Wade's; and Stanton--no need for further comment there; and Chapman; and Britton; and so on, ad nauseam, while guys like Allen and Vazques and Florial have languished in the minors and are sent back down even when they perform well in their brief stints in the majors; while guys like Frazier are jerked around and mishandled and demoralized with endless pinch-hitting and late-inning pinch-fielding to make sure they feel the pressure of having to hit a five-run homer with every swing to stick with the team; and so on and so on and so on to permanent nullity. The mighty Yankees, Costner? Yeah--in your field of dreams.

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  85. .646 for Gardner--typo

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  86. atrocious defensively--rapid-tying typos everywhere.

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  87. According to Fangraphs, the Yankees have a 9.7 percent chance of winning the division and a 33.1 percent chance of winning the Wild Card. Baseball-Reference computes their chances as being substantially lower for both. For this Cashman gutted the farm system and saddled the team with garbage like Odor and Gallo and Britton and Chapman and Gardner instead of selling off these big-name, no-peformance geezers and building the kind of young athletic team that can actually contend for years rather than just sniff a wild card for a couple of weeks and then fade, ensuring a decade-long slog in the desert.

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  88. By the guys who used to be good or were supposed to be good and now suck syndrome: compress that to the Nokes-Kemp syndrome, now reasserting itself under Cashman.

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  89. And BTW, Hoss, fascinating article. I'll admit I love baseball history but hadn't heard about "Doc" Adams.

    There is a petition to get him on the ballot again for the Hall of Fame.

    https://docadamsbaseball.org/the-petition/

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