Changing the History of the Game

Changing the History of the Game

While this blog is dedicated to minor league research, if I stumble upon something that that will change major league history, I will present it here.  And so is the case of an item that I found while reading The Sporting News.

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary has the following note on the first use of the term “scout”:

1ST    1905 (Sporting Life, September 2; EJN)


In reading the July 5, 1902 issue of  The Sporting News, I found the following reprint of a note by Sam Crane in The New York Press:

“Chief of Scouts” Horace Fogel is on the road again after promising youngsters to fill up the ranks of the Giants.  

While this only pushes the term “scout” back three years, it sounds, from the above note, that the term, in fact, had been in use for some time, meaning that somebody might come up with a much earlier use.