THE NATIONAL GAME



Gotta go off to Cooperstown. I'll be giving a baseball lecture next

month.

Paul Dickson has the New York Herald, 8 July 1865, for "the national

game." That's very early, although someone traced "the national pastime" to

1857!

This is from Harper's Weekly, 15 October 1859, pg. 660(? Copy is cut

off), col. 3:



Our people, or "that pure and reformed part of them" (as one of the old

Episcopal collects says) which advocates athletic excercises, excuse the

general neglect of cricket in this country by saying that base-ball is our

national game.