Beadle's Dime Base Ball Player, No. 14

# The Dime Base-Ball Player (1875)

Edited by Henry Chadwick, this is the fourteenth annual edition of a practical reference guide to base-ball. The publication contains a brief history of the sport, instructions for scoring, technical terminology, and guidance for managing a club. The introduction positions base-ball as America's answer to cricket, emphasizing its suitability to American character and its democratic appeal. The text traces evolution from 1857 rules—originally requiring only twenty "counts" and permitting bound catches—to the systematic, scientific game of 1875, describing how rule amendments have balanced pitcher and batter advantages over successive seasons.

The guide includes field positioning diagrams, the original Knickerbocker Club rules from 1845, instructions for measuring the playing ground (ninety-foot squares), the 1875 playing code, 1874 professional club records with batting averages, and an extensive roster of prominent professional players with biographical details—their ages, heights, weights, birthplaces, and club affiliations. Supplements include merchant advertisements for base-ball equipment from Peck & Snyder.