Book123

    Free register and download UseNet downloader, then you can FREE Download from UseNet.

    Download without Limit " History/Military Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search For The Roots Of The Game " from UseNet for FREE!

More

David Block "Baseball

Before We Knew It: A Search For The Roots Of The Game"

The author seems to be primarily engaged in trying to debunk three myths: (1) that Gen. Abner Doubleday invented the game, (2) that the real inventor was Alexander J. Cartwright of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, and (3) that the game developed from the English game of rounders.

For the first, there has already been so much evidence that Doubleday had nothing in particular to do with baseball, so it would seem there was little more that could be said, except that, in fact, the author finds out some interesting evidence that he believes to be the main reason that A. G. Spalding might have favored Doubleday's claim-- that Spalding and Doubleday were both adherents of the same religious cult!

Regarding the Cartwright claim, the author has much less to say. He accepts that the Knickerbocker Rules were an important step in the development of baseball, but in addition he states that there is evidence that Cartwright's role in developing those rules was less significant than has been believed. And he shows that organized baseball games occured before the adoption of the Knickerbocker Rules.

It is in debunking the third "myth," I think, where the author strains to do something undeserved. So the name "rounders" does not seem to have been used prior to the nineteenth century. But the author admits that "rounders" was simply a name that has come to be assigned to an earlier English game, and that baseball developed from that game. The difference between that and the "myth" he is trying to debunk is minimal. If you really think it makes a difference between saying "baseball developed from rounders" and "baseball evolved from a number of games, but the most important was the game now known in England as 'rounders,'" you can accept this book's argument. I don't see it that way; to me "developed from rounders" and "developed from the game now known as rounders" are not significantly different

Buy Book at Lowest Price on Amazon

Download FREE





RS Link: http://rapidshare.com/files/210433022/_0803213395.rar

Reason: Some users are blocked from downloading from those mirrors

Thank you for all your work and efforts!

Baseball was known and referred to as a game in 18th century Kent (source unknown, but it is documented)

It is unrelated to the modern game in that the batting team was discouraged from spitting while waiting its turn to bat(apocryphal)

Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123