[Rarebooks] FS: The first official baseball rule book, 1867

[Charles Agvent]

CHADWICK, Henry HANEY'S BASE BALL PLAYER'S BOOK OF REFERENCE. [The first 
official baseball rule book]
Haney & Co. New York 1867 First Edition ...CONTAINING THE REVISED RULES 
OF THE GAME FOR 1867, WITH AN EXPLANATORY APPENDIX TO EACH RULE, 
TOGETHER WITH FULL INSTRUCTIONS FOR UMPIRES AND SCORERS, AND ALSO FOR 
PITCHING, BATTING AND FIELDING. THE WHOLE FORMING A STANDARD AUTHORITY 
ON ALL POINTS OF THE NATIONAL GAME. Small octavo (3-3/4"x 5-7/8") in 
original green wraps depicting three ballplayers on the front holding a 
bat and examining the rule book; [ii], 139, [iii] pages, plus covers. 
The issue published just nine years earlier in 1858 was the FIRST 
OFFICIAL BASEBALL RULE BOOK. Its author, Henry Chadwick, was the sport's 
first great journalist and a leading figure in the development of the 
game. Illustrated with about a dozen engravings in the text including 
full-page depictions of a regulation baseball field and a baseball 
pitcher. Includes not just rules but much advice on how to form and 
manage a club as well as specific hints on how to field, pitch, and bat. 
With several pages on how to play baseball on the ice! Owner name of E. 
S. Hughes of South Trenton, New York in light pencil on the top of the 
front cover and title page. Light foxing to some pages, heaviest on the 
bulked fore-edge of the text. The front cover has an inch-long vertical 
closed tear along the spine edge and a small triangular piece torn off 
the fore-edge and still present, laid in loosely, with no loss in either 
case. A Very Good copy of a scarce and important baseball book.  $6000.00
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