Time for another installment of our History of the Game series: In 1744, the word “Base-Ball” first appeared in print! For those unaccustomed to Early Modern English spellings (the “ſ” above is an archaic form of the lower case letter “s”), here’s the verse modernized…
Read MoreBatting the Ball (or “seker-hemat”) was an Egyptian bat-and-ball game, played by the Egyptian pharaohs (with their priests as catchers)! Significantly, this game had certain physical and thematic similarities to modern American baseball, and in certain ways, might be understood as an ancient precursor to baseball and softball—as Peter A. Piccione, Ph.D. also notes the possibility of professional female ball players in Egypt.
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