Baseball

The history of the game of baseball is a bit convoluted. Prior to what we now call baseball, there were several bat and ball games (i.e., one player hits the ball with a stick and others try to catch it), as well as rounder games (i.e., a sport in which players run around bases). These were created and developed by the French and English going back almost seven-hundred years. In modern times, we can see several forms of sports similar to baseball: cricket, which is a bat and ball game; punchball, which has no bat or pitcher, but is a rounder game involving a diamond shaped field with bases.

The last stamp on this page depicts children playing baseball in an open field. There are no spectators other than the players. There are no uniforms or set teams, or a league. There are no adults, no coaches, and no money involved. It’s just kids playing and enjoying baseball. That’s how I used to play baseball when I was a boy. I wasn’t a member of a Little League team or any other team. We just played for fun and often at the spur of the moment.

One kid would say, “Hey! Let’s play baseball.” Then we’d all run home and get our gloves and one would get a bat and a ball. We’d reconvene on an empty lot of land in the neighborhood, or at the park at the end of the street. We’d use pieces of trash for the bases, placing them roughly where we thought they belong. We’d choose sides and positions – we rarely had nine players for each team – and started playing. We never played nine innings. We’d just play until our mother’s called some of us for dinner, or until a grumpy neighbor would chase us off, or we’d get in an argument about something silly and then we’d disburse. That’s baseball at its finest to me. No pressure, no abuse, just fun.

Note

Here’s another page of violet and purple stamps. They must have gotten a special price on the ink. Anyway, I have all of them unused. This page is complete.

Contains 11 spots: own 11 – 11 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 21, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Constitution & Decl. of Independence

1.1

✓

835

Constitution Ratification
150 Years

3c (jun 1938)
comm., deep violet

United Nations & Other Nations

2.1

✓

836

First Swedes & Finns
300 Years

3c (jun 1938)
comm., red violet

U.S. Territories

2.2	✓	838	Iowa Territory - Centenial Old Capitol in Iowa City	3c (aug 1938) comm., violet
2.3	✓	837	Northwest Territoy - 150 Years Gutzon Borglum	3c (jul 1938) comm., bright violet

Other

3.1	✓	857	Printing in Colonies - 300 Years Stephen Daye Press	3c (sep 1939) comm., violet
3.2	✓	852	Golden Gate Intl. Expo. The Tower of the Sun	3c (feb 1939) comm., bright purple
3.3	✓	853	New York World’s Fair Dawn of a New Day	3c (apr 1939) definitive, deep purple
3.4	✓	854	Washington Inauguration 150 Years	3c (apr 1939) definitive, red violet
4.1	✓	856	Panama Canal - 25 Years Theodore Roosevelt & George Goethals	3c (aug 1939) comm., deep red violet
4.2	✓	858	Dakotas, Montana & Washington Statehood - 50 Years	3c (nov 1939) comm., pink violet
5.1	✓	855	Baseball Centennial	3c (jun 1939) comm., violet

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.