Baseball, or Base-Ball, appears for the first time in a book printed in America in A Little Pretty Pocket-Book in 1787. The text, being “Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly,” compares running the bases with a boy’s “flying away” in search of fame and fortune, hoping to return safely “Home.” Baseball would not become known as a national pastime until it was played professionally by adults in the mid-nineteenth century.
A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly. The first Worcester edition. Worcester, Mass.: Isaiah Thomas, 1787. PML 88064. Gift of Julia P. Wightman, 1991.