Baseball in Britain told through 1891 volume

In his “Prefatory Note,” Crane writes, “The following pages have been written in the hope that they may afford practical assistance to the large and rapidly increasing number of young men in this country who have manifested a desire to acquire a knowledge of baseball, and to learn to play the game.”

The first chapter lays out his “history of the game” and describes it as not only of English origin but as “… one of the most ancient of English sports.” Crane states that baseball “undoubtedly” owes its origin to the English game of rounders, but in a footnote brings up A.G. Spalding’s belief that baseball descended from the old French game of tcheque. Spalding, a former ballplayer, helped to create one of the most popular brands of sporting equipment and helped to establish the Mills Commission which was appointed in 1905 to determine the origin of baseball.

While it is unlikely anyone will ever know those origins, the fact that it was being discussed in England helps to illustrate the early international interest in the game and its provenance.

According to Crane, modern baseball was first seen in England in 1874 when the Boston Red Stockings and the Athletics of Philadelphia toured through the counties for a series of exhibition games. He writes that fairly good audiences attended, but “little interest was evinced in the sport, or in the presence of the visiting Americans.” He writes that there was no great likeness to any other game of ball – no stumps to defend as in cricket, no goals, and there was confusion in the variety of rules. “Thus the efforts of the Boston and Philadelphia players to introduce baseball in England resulted in complete failure,” Crane writes.

The Brits saw nothing of the sport again until Spalding took a team of professional ballplayers on a world tour in 1888-1889, drawing attention from England, where the team played in March 1889. Crane recounts a story of the Prince of Wales attending a game in London between the Chicago White Stockings and the All-America team at Kennington Oval, telling a reporter that although he considered baseball an excellent game, he considered cricket as superior.

According to Issroff, he is not in touch with baseball enough to gauge its current popularity in either England or South Africa, but his memories of spending time with “Uncle Joe” on the diamonds of Johannesburg have not waned.

As a result of Issroff’s early introduction to the sport and having friends from Johannesburg later settle in Cooperstown, he toured the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and decided this year to donate his little book of British baseball rules to the collection.

“I really enjoyed the visit to the Hall of Fame … and just had the idea of checking if they had this book in the library and then donated it,” Issroff said. “I figured it would be a lot more useful there than lying around here.”

The book, now a part of the Hall of Fame Library’s collection, will remain a testament to the interest of the sport abroad as well as in the United States.