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One of the most amazing things happened on the way to work. Baseballfarming.com, mywebsite, is sending baseball zingers, nuggets, facts and humorous anecdotes to everybaseball player,fan,and anyone standing within sight or earshot of my website.

The game of baseball is pure American with the American ingenuity of taking a thought, aphrase, a game, a habit or even your money and calling it American. Has anyone seen orheard of this game of baseball? I have and I thought I had played the game enough, readmany books of its history and followed many heroes of the game but there is so muchabout which I did not have a clue.

This thing about coming to work. An amazing thing popped into my mind. It was simplythis: 'Baseball pitchers throwing underhanded.' I had heard about it in passingbut it really did not sink in with full impact until I began my baseballfarming.com website. Doing my homework, paying close attention to detail, the light finally came on, 'Heythose early day baseball playing heroes were really playing a girly game.'

I'm sorry but I didn't live back in mid the 19th Century when Alexander Joy CartwrightJr. and his New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club began to get serious and put downsome rules and regulations so we could have a legitimate basis for claiming baseball asbeing an 'American game.' The thrill of competition was so strong boys, from acrosstowns USA, began to challenge each other and the game grew and grew and just like'Pinnochio's Nose' it got bigger and bigger.

So our game had it's genesis up east around Boston and New York then spread toPhiladelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago. It could not be contained and was soon recognizedas 'America's Pastime', this game we call Baseball.'

The real kicker is that the facts, the statistics and yes, the myths surrounding the gameclouded much of the reality of it all. Many of the nitty gritty details are ignored or neverreally pondered to the point of, ' This is how it is, folks!'

As I was growing up the boys played baseball and the girls playedsoftball. Do not get me totally wrong. Men and boys also played this game ofsoftball during my era around the time of World War II. Being a boy and with a tendencyof being a little bit of a male chauvinist in spirit and environment it was this way,'Boys and baseball, Girls and softball.'

Before some of these local fellers twice my size and with the muscle to reinforce theirfeelings take me to task for calling sofball a girly game let me back track some. As amatter of fact Birmingham, Alabama and the Gulf Coast environs of Florida and Alabamaduring my high school years were World leaders in Softball. Bagget TransportationCompany and 7-Up Bottling Company battled toe to toe, year-in year-out, for SoftballSupremacy. These were Industrial Corporation sponsored men's teams and leagues thatshowcased Hall Of Fame caliber softball playing.

The most significant thing ie, difference between the games evolved around the pitching.Baseball pitchers threw the ball overhand and softball pitchers threw the ball underhand.Not a big deal but that is simply how the games were played. Along comes dunce methinking that it had always been that way. Boy was I flabbergasted to learn baseballplaying was all underhanded throwing until.?

Remember our great game of baseball started with rules and regulations of play beingestablished by Mr Cartwright and the Knickerbockers Baseball Club well back there in1845.

The National League was the driving force which propelled major league baseball into anorganized sport with strict rules, schedules and as a business venture with controllinginterest and motives determining the rules of play. Here is my surprising knowledge:Starting the season of 1884 was the rule change which allowed pitchers to pitchoverhand.

Imagine from and even before 1845 until 1884, some thirty-nine (39) years, baseball wasplayed by rules with pitchers throwing underhand. I did not know this little bit of reality. 'Did You ?'

Batter Up----Let's Play Ball....

Major Wiley B. Channell USMC (retired) talking all about baseball here athttp://www.baseballfarming.com. I plan to keep the baseball world of fans players andbystanders loaded up with baseball strategies,training, and winning ideas.