in which one player
tossed the ball in the air and hit it, as it fell, to others who caught
it, or sometimes it was pitched to him by another player.

Concerning the origin of the American game of base-ball there exists
considerable uncertainty. A correspondent of Porter's Spirit of the
Times, as far back as 1856, begins a series of letters on the game by
acknowledging his utter inability to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion upon this point; and a writer of recent date introduces a
research into the history of the game with the frank avowal that he has
only succeeded in finding "a remarkable lack of literature on the
subject."

In view of its extraordinary growth and popularity as "Our National
Game," the author deems it important that its true origin should, if
possible, be ascertained, and he has, therefore, devoted to this inquiry
more space than might at first seem necessary.

In 1856, within a dozen years from the time of the systematization of
the game, the number of clubs in the metropolitan district and the
enthusiasm attending their matches began to attract particular
attention. The fact became apparent that it was surely superseding the
English game of cricket, and the adherents of the latter game looked
with ill-concealed jealousy on the rising upstart. There were then, as
now, persons who believed that everything good and beautiful in the
world must be of English origin, and these at once felt the need of a
pedigree for the new game. Some one of them discovered that in certain
features it resembled an English game called "rounders," and immediately
it was announced to the American public that base-ball was only the
English game transposed. This theory was not admitted by the followers
of the new game, hut, unfortunately, they were not in a position to
emphasize the denial. One of the strongest advocates of the rounder
theory, an Englishman-born himself, was the writer for out-door sports
on the principal metropolitan publications. In this capacity and as the
author of a number of independent works of his own, and the writer of
the "base-ball" articles in several encyclopedias and books of sport, he
has lost no opportunity to advance his pet theory. Subsequent writers
have, blindly, it would seem, followed this lead, until now we find it
asserted on every hand as a fact established by some indisputable
evidence; and yet there has never been adduced a particle of proof to
support this conclusion.

Wh