Thorn: Walt Whitman, baseball reporter
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on April 25, 2016:
America’s poet expounded on America’s game in this little-known June 18, 1858 editorial from the Brooklyn Daily Times. (For calling it to my attention, thanks to Jim Carothers.) But these were not Whitman’s only published words on the national pastime: in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass appears the line “Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or a good game of base-ball”; and in the Brooklyn Eagle of July 23, 1846 (only one month after the Knickerbockers’ purported first match game), he wrote: “In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing ‘base,’ a certain game of ball.” By the way, in the box score you’ll note a heading “H.L.”—this signifies “Hands Lost,” or outs made at bat or on the base paths; you’ll also note Pierce at shortstop for the Atlantics—this is the celebrated Dickey Pearce. Here’s Walt, before he became our Good Gray Poet, in his only known reportage of a baseball game.
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2016/04/25/walt-whitman-baseball-reporter/
Originally published: April 25, 2016. Last Updated: April 25, 2016.