XIII. THE BASE-RUNNER

CHAPTER XIV. CURVE PITCHING

INTRODUCTION. AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF BASE-BALL, WITH A BRIEF
SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY.

It may or it may not be a serious reflection upon the accuracy of
history that the circumstances of the invention of the first ball are
enveloped in some doubt. Herodotus attributes it to the Lydians, but
several other writers unite in conceding to a certain beautiful lady of
Corcyra, Anagalla by name, the credit of first having made a ball for
the purpose of pastime. Several passages in Homer rather sustain this
latter view, and, therefore, with the weight of evidence, and to the
glory of woman, we, too, shall adopt this theory. Anagalla did not apply
for letters patent, but, whether from goodness of heart or inability to
keep a secret, she lost no time in making known her invention and
explaining its uses. Homer, then, relates how:

"O'er the green mead the sporting virgins play, Their shining veils
unbound; along the skies, Tost and retost, the ball incessant flies."

And this is the first ball game on record, though it is perhaps
unnecessary to say that it was not yet base-ball.

No other single accident has ever been so productive of games as that
invention. From the day when the Phaeacian maidens started the ball
rolling down to the present time, it has been continuously in motion,
and as long as children love play and adults feel the need of exercise
and recreation, it will continue to roll. It has been known in all
lands, and at one time or another been popular with all peoples. The
Greeks and the Romans were great devotees of ball-play; China was noted
for her players; in the courts of Italy and France, we are told, it was
in especial favor, and Fitz-Stephen, writing in the 13th century, speaks
of the London schoolboys playing at "the celebrated game of ball."

For many centuries no bat was known, but in those games requiring the
ball to be struck, the hand alone was used. In France there was early
played a species of hand-ball. To protect the hands thongs were
sometimes bound about them, and this eventually furnished the idea of
the racquet. Strutt thinks a bat was first used in golf, cambuc, or
bandy ball. This was similar to the boys' game of "shinny," or, as it is
now more elegantly known, "polo," and the bat used was bent at the end,
just as now. The first straight bats were used in the old English game
called club ball. This was simply "fungo hitting,"