One critical difference: the umpire has a halberd and is willing to use it. The Ghistelles Hours, a Fourteenth Century Flemish devotional manuscript, contains illustrations of people playing something that scholar Carl Pyrdum describes as baseball. But I think that it sounds like cricket:
Though there’s no base in sight, various historians of sport have identified this game as a version of “stool ball” or “stump ball”, which was baseball played with only one base, where the object was for the pitcher to hit a stump or a stool or other handy protrusion with the ball while the batter protected it by batting away the pitcher’s balls. Each player stood on or near what was essentially a “base” If the batter made contact, he was expected to run around the pitcher’s base and back to his own. Various fielders could catch the batted ball and throw the ball at the stool while the batter is occupied running.
Link -via Retronaut | Photo: Walters Art Museum
It kind of reminds me of something we played when we were kids called French Cricket. A garbage can was the stump, the batter protected it, the bowler tried to hit it and everyone else tried to catch the ball. I don't remember any running although there must have been some in order to score. As usual with any backyard cricket over the fence was 6 and out
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Here's more information about French Cricket.
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I agree: French Cricket. We used to have to run between wickets to score, although only hitting the batter's wicket could get you out or being caught out.
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