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Historic Baseball Document Located in Massachusetts LibraryA town bylaw that prohibits the playing of baseball within 80 yards of the meeting house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has captured the attention of sports historians who think it may be the earliest extant reference to the game in North America. Ann Marie Harris, local history librarian in Pittsfield’s Berkshire Athenaeum, located the original document in the library vault after historian John Thorn saw a reference to it in an 1869 history of the town.Dated September 5, 1791, the bylaw predates by more than 30 years two New York newspaper articles from 1823 that refer to an organized form of a game called “base ball” played in Manhattan. Pittsfield’s bylaw assessed a fine of “five schillings” on anyone playing “Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Batball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other Game or Games with Balls” within the proscribed area. Athenaeum Local History Supervisor Kathleen M. Reilly told American Libraries that the document actually exists in two forms—the library’s original document, drawn up by the town’s first lawyer, Woodbridge Little; and an official copy transcribed in the official Town Book, kept by the city clerk’s office, where records of bylaws were compiled. “The document has had a winding history,” Reilly said. “Our local genealogical group, the Berkshire Family History Association, had actually published the text in the Winter 2000 issue of its journal. It’s only when you get someone like John Thorn, who is a baseball historian and has the punch to call attention to the document, that the newspapers notice.” A facsimile of the bylaw has been posted on the library’s website. Posted May 14, 2004. |
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