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George Hancock (softball)

For other people named George Hancock, see George Hancock (disambiguation).

George Warren Hancock (1 March 1861 – 15 April 1936), after the time a reporter for Chicago Board of Trade, invented the game of softball in 1887. The first game was played, inside the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago.[1] The first game of softball came from a football game between Yale and Harvard. When it was announced that Yale had won, Yale alumni, in excitement, threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The Harvard supporter playfully swung at it as spectators looked on in interest.

George Hancock shouted, "Let's play ball," and tied the boxing glove into the shape of a ball. The men chalked a diamond shape onto the floor and broke a broom handle to serve as a bat. This is credited as the first softball game which was played on Thanksgiving Day November 24, 1887 after a Harvard-Yale football game that had been followed by telegraph.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Hancock's original game of indoor baseball quickly caught on in popularity, becoming international with the formation of a league in Toronto. That year, 1887, was also the premiere publication of the Indoor Baseball Guide. This was the first nationally distributed publication on the new game and it lasted a decade. In the spring of 1888, Hancock's game moved outdoors.[8] It was played on a small diamond and called indoor-outdoor. Due to the sport's mass appeal, Hancock published his first set of indoor-outdoor rules in 1889.[9]

  1. ^ The Farragut Boat Club is mentioned in a news item that appeared later. See: "Sports of the Athletes" (PDF). The New York Times. July 30, 1889. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  2. ^ "History of Softball". SoftballPerformance.com. Archived from the original on 2009-01-09. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  3. ^ "The History of Softball". International Softball Federation. Archived from the original on 2006-12-12. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  4. ^ David Levinson & Karen Christensen, ed. (1996). Encyclopedia of World Sports. London & New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 371–73. ISBN 0-19-512778-1.
  5. ^ "Ivy League Sports". Archived from the original on August 17, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  6. ^ "Harvard-Yale Football "The Game": History". Archived from the original on 2008-08-27. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  7. ^ "Hancock, George - World of Sports Science". Retrieved 2009-09-24.
  8. ^ Plummer III, Bill (1998). "Slow Pitch Softball History Definition Page". Retrieved 2009-09-24.
  9. ^ "History of Softball". Archived from the original on 2009-06-27. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
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