“The love of base ball is wide spread. A little six year old was sitting upon the steps, with a base ball in his hand, gazing intently at the moon. ‘Pa, is there only one man in the moon?’ asked he.
“’That’s the tradition my son; the man in the moon is the only inhabitant of that bright world we have ever heard of.’
“After a moment of pause he remarked with a sigh, ‘He must be lonesome, pa, with no one to play base ball with.’”
— The Marysville (Kansas) Enterprise, 1867
Photo: “Kids In June.” The Baseball Bloggess, 6/26/2021
Photo: Pixabay via Pexels.com
The Baseball Bloggess 
wide spread
base ball
The good old days when we didn’t need editor/husband.
But, 1867 editor/husband would have been aok with “base ball” and “wide spread.” (Either that, or he would have taken his wife’s pencil away, saying “Why not just leave the writing to men?”) What 2021 editor/husband couldn’t help me figure out was how to get the curl of that single quote at the beginning of the second paragraph to curl in the correct direction.
Only way I know of is a space between the ” and the ‘
Fun. She looks like she should be on the mound and he has a good lead off first.
:)
Playing baseball on the moon would be challenging. You’d definitely need some new rules.
You made me laugh … those moon pitchers better stock up on Spider Tack to keep the ball from floating out of their hands. :)
Ha! And every fly ball would be out of the park….
It’s a pity that when the man in the moon finally had visitors they didn’t leave him a base ball to toss by himself.
Wow, I didn’t realize Marysville, KS existed that long ago, much less had a paper. It’s a tiny town, even today.