Oshkosh Public Library

Our frontier pastime: 1804- 1815, how the sport was born and developed in the American West among the Indians known to Lewis and Clark, according to the honorably honest and genuinely humble Benjamin Batman Bunt, the forgotten "father of baseball," as BBB himself and others related the whole true story to L.C. Crouch, by Gregory J. Lalire

eng

no index present

non fiction

Our frontier pastime: 1804- 1815

1088603161

by Gregory J. Lalire

how the sport was born and developed in the American West among the Indians known to Lewis and Clark, according to the honorably honest and genuinely humble Benjamin Batman Bunt, the forgotten "father of baseball," as BBB himself and others related the whole true story to L.C. Crouch

"Our Frontier Pastime: 1804-1815 is offbeat historical fiction as 'truthfully' told in 1908 by ninety-six-year-old L.C. Crouch, who wants the world to know that Captain Benjamin Batman Bunt, not Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright, was the inventor of baseball. It is Crouch's contention that BBB, with an assist from Nez Perces and other western American Indians as well as a spirited great horned owl, became the "Father of Baseball" while traveling with the groundbreaking Lewis and Clark Expedition in a highly unofficial capacity--babysitting "the Babe" for Sacagawea, the secret love of BBB's life, and, as it turns out, a pretty fair country ballplayer" --, Provided by publisher"Synopsis: As divulged in the 'Preface' and 'Introduction' of this offbeat historical novel, L.C. Crouch is a ninety-six-year-old (it is not revealed if the author is a man or woman) who is dictating this story in 1908 to a sixty-seven-year-old stepson. Crouch's stated mission is to let the world know that Captain Benjamin Batman Bunt, not Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright, invented the game/sport of baseball while traveling with Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as a babysitter for Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, nicknamed 'Little Pomp' by Clark and 'the Babe' by BBB. Along the way with the Corps of Discovery, the playful BBB falls madly in love with the young boy's mother, Sacagawea; spars with the boy's father, Toussaint Charbonneau; talks philosophy with the "out in left field" Lewis; and tries not to aggravate the duty-bound Clark. BBB also discovers that Nez Perce Indians have developed their own primitive version of the game with the help of a mysterious great horned owl that seems to be the mischievous spirit of baseball. In 1908 L.C. used BBB's extant first journal (far more personal than the Lewis and Clark journals) and what his friends revealed decades earlier to tell this alternative account of the origins of baseball. L.C. Crouch, it is revealed by a modern editor, was the long-forgotten daughter of Benjamin Batman Bunt. The mother was Sacagawea" --, Provided by publisher