Baseball invented in Polynesia - who knew?

Lori with the first known baseball (left) and a Polynesian warrior (right)

When the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii around 1200 AD, little did they know that they would soon be credited with the invention of baseball.  

Besides chickens, the natives brought breadfruit plants with them.  The fruit grows to be quite large, up to 6 kg, but harvested early, the small fruit is hard and fits conveniently in your hand.  This was only one component of what was needed to complete the tools needed for the sport.

The second component was, of course, the bat.  The Polynesian boy is shown holding a traditional Niho Lei-o-Mano war club carved from Kao trees.  Popular for its ability to dissuade uninvited suitors from visiting daughters, it also had the ability to launch a hand-sized breadfruit a considerable distance.  It didn't take long before the breadfruit (bf) ball and club bat became well acquainted.

Catching the bf ball was somewhat difficult; the course rind could cut up your hand should it be caught at speed.  There had to be some way to mitigate its vicious attack.  It turns out that a palm leaf wrapping half a coconut shell was the perfect thing, and so the baseball glove was invented.

The game, while still in its infancy, seemed to have little purpose until someone caught a fly ball while running on the beach.  A washed-up jellyfish happened to be underfoot when the catch was made and inspiration led to the creation of bases.  Now the natives had all that was needed to play the game.

Diamondhead, the volcano adorning Oahu's Wikiki beach, became the inspiration for the setup.  A bf baseball diamond was created using 4 jellyfish and two opposing teams would face each other on this arena.  A mound, representing the volcano, was used for the thrower of the bf ball.  It was perfect.

Modernization was inevitable when explorers came to the island with mammals whose skin could produce better balls and gloves.  Even the jellyfish bases were replaced, as occasionally a runner would get stung from one of the tentacles.  This was particularly a problem if you had to slide onto a base as you could run face-first into a stinging fortress and be knocked out cold.  This is where the term, "You're out" comes from.

Thankfully, the sport was brought to North America where it became very popular.  Who knew?

Note:  None of this of course is true, but I thought it would be fun to write.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com