Presented is a hardbound copy of the original paper digest “De Witt’s Base Ball Guide for 1877: A Complete Manual of Base-Ball,” authored by one of the fathers of the game, Henry Chadwick, who is listed as the “Base-Ball Editor for the New York Clipper.” The historic 100-page, 4 x 6-inch paper tract was one of the 19th Century’s first guides for the growing sport. The original orange paper covers with black type and illustration are bound in a 4¼ x 6¾-inch green buckram hardcover volume, with “Baseball Guide 1877” in gold type on the spine. The original front cover proclaims “De Witt’s Hand Books De Witt’s Base Ball Guide 1877 For Sale by The American News Company, 115, 117, 119 and 121 Nassau Street, New York” with a line drawing of a mustachioed man with a cap and a baseball in his right hand ready to throw. As printed on the title page, this was “A complete manual of baseball containing full instructions in the points of the game; full statistics showing pitching, batting, and fielding averages.

Together with the records of the various championship contests of the season, professional and amateur. Also, special instructions for scoring and reporting the game. The whole illustrated with cuts and diagrams.” Booklet includes hand-colored diagrams in the back. As the preeminent writer on baseball for over half a century, Chadwick developed many of the standards by which we evaluate players and teams today. Most importantly, he translated his passionate love for baseball to the working-class population that would go on to play and watch the game. Chadwick was born in Exter, England in 1824 and played ball games like rounders and cricket before moving to the United States in 1837. He was a cricket reporter for The New York Times in 1856 when he witnessed a spirited game of baseball between New York’s Gotham and Eagle clubs. Chadwick quickly focused his attention to baseball and began writing regular columns on the sport for the nationally read New York Clipper and Sunday Mercury.

In 1859, Chadwick formulated his first modern box score, in which he documented statistics like runs, hits, put-outs, assists and errors for the dominant Brooklyn Excelsiors club. Additionally, Chadwick recorded the pitchers’ strikeouts, denoting them with the letter ‘K.’ Chadwick’s box scores and detailed game descriptions helped Americans follow the sport from home. For the first time, a fan could compare the statistics of one player to another and form their own opinions without having to travel to the ballpark. Additionally, Chadwick introduced the concept of earned and unearned runs and invented the batting average statistic. Soon, Chadwick’s widely read columns made him an influential member of baseball’s early rules committees. Beginning in 1860, Chadwick edited The Beadle’s Dime Base Ball Player, in which he listed the first season totals for teams and players and instituted the original framework for how games should be scored.

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