Larry McCray
Larry McCray (1942-2023) created the vast and invaluable Protoball Project, to help researchers and writers locate and refine primary data on the evolution and spread of ball play from ancient times to up to 1870, just before the first professional baseball league began. Enlisting the efforts of 100 other “diggers,” as they are termed on the site, Larry is the man most responsible for the new public understanding of baseball’s predecessor games. He served as Guest Editor of the special Protoball issue of Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, featuring more than thirty articles on this long neglected and little understood area.
Related links:
- Read John Thorn’s profile of Larry McCray in the Spring 2017 Baseball Research Journal
- In Memoriam: Larry McCray (1942-2023)
- Learn more about the early origins of baseball at Protoball.org
- Read “The Knickerbocker Rules — And The Long History of the One-Bounce Fielding Rule,” by Larry McCray (Our Game)
- Read “The Rise and Fall of New England-Style Ballplaying,” by Larry McCray (Our Game)