The Origins of Baseball

Books on the history of baseball pay very little attention to the problem of how baseball originated and how and why it evolved to its present form. Ball games, with rubber balls or balls covered with rawhide, sometimes with bats three or four feet long, were universal among native Americans, going back many hundreds of years. The games often had a ceremonial character. Before the year 1000, in northern Mexico and Arizona, there were ball courts, similar to those of the Mayas of Central America, as large as 180 by 61 feet. The issue of some ancient American ball games was life or death. More recently some of the pilgrims building the Plymouth Plantation used to escape from the tedium of work by playing ball. Forms of baseball similar to the one we know were played by white Americans well before 1870, which is the generally accepted date for the finalization of baseball in its present form. The history of baseball since that time is, of course, well documented. Yet we know little more now about its early history and evolution than was known in 1907 when the Special Baseball Commission, made up of prominent baseball executives and two United States senators, announced, with insufficient evidence, that Abner Doubleday is the father of baseball.

Daniel McNeill

Read the complete essay about the indirect meanings of baseball at:

usoftheworld.com/baseball-metaphysics

World Unity 26

The Civil War caused a radical power shift but it never resulted in the birth of a nation. However, there was a need to unify a post war America that welcomed and put to work 20 million immigrants. School children soon began pledging allegiance every school day to a nation. The Pledge of Allegiance expressed the altered state of the union thus: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” The 13 red and white stripes stretched across the flag represent the 13 original states of the union. The stars on the flag represent the 13 original states and all subsequent states admitted to the union by bills passed by the Congress. The stars and stripes express the union’s complexity. The Pledge of Allegiance simplifies it. It states that all the states taken together are a republic. And it states that this republic is one nation. Since it is impossible logically and practically to form a nation out of 50 sovereign states and so many immigrants coming from all parts of the world, the pledge should be seen as an effort to strengthen loyalty to Washington. Old Americans and new Americans had to learn that there could be no liberty and justice for all and no union without a powerful government in Washington. A corrected pledge, one in harmony with our true history and a more authentic basis for our loyalty to Washington, would be: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republics for which it stands, one perpetual union indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” By 1959, there were 50 states and, adding the government in Washington, 51 republics. The Federal Government, although it is not a state, is certainly, with its duties outlined in the Constitution and its great powers, one republic. In the future we hope it will be the central government of a worldwide union of states and then it will be the head of something much greater than one nation.

Daniel McNeill usoftheworld.com

The United States of the World, The Theater of the Impossible, The End of All Beginnings, books by Daniel McNeill, are for sale at:amazon.com/author/graceisall