# Casey's court and the Sun's rules

In: [Learn](https://handball.theperfectship.com/learn.md) > [History](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history.md) > [The Handball Record](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/record.md) > Casey's court and the Sun's rules

Chapter 2 of 10. 1887 to 1896. Eras: Casey's court, the Brooklyn Handball Club and The Sun's rules (1887-1896).

Status: Draft, machine-reviewed. A person has not yet read this chapter through.

On Sunday, 17 March 1889, *the Sun* gave a feature on page seven to handball, headed with Casey's name as the man telling how the games should be played. The article asked how many of the paper's readers had ever seen a game, put the sport's arrival in this country at some fifty years back, and set a diagram of the court beside Casey's advice on waiting for the ball to drop and hitting it low. It closed with "the set rules of the game": twenty-one aces to a game, a ball about two inches across and an ounce and a third in weight, one ace line across the middle of the court, a hinder played over, and a referee chosen by the players. The paper named no club, committee or author for them. The *Wichita Eagle* reprinted the article on 9 April, crediting the *Sun*, and added nothing about where the rules came from.

The court Casey spoke from was then less than two years old. On Tuesday, 29 November 1887, he beat John Lawlor of Dublin, the Irish champion, in seven games without losing one, in the Brooklyn Handball Club's new court in Degraw Street. The match was twenty-one games for the championship of the world, by *the Sun*'s report of the next morning; the first ten had been played in Ireland, where Lawlor won six, so Casey needed seven before Lawlor took five. Casey, an ex-alderman, was the club's president, Thomas F. Cook was the referee, and the court, finished only a short time before play began, was sixty-five feet long and twenty-four wide, with a front wall thirty-five feet high faced in white marble and a back wall of twelve. *The Tribune* of the same day agrees on the place. *The Sun* dated the court's opening to "three years ago to-day" in a note of 29 November 1890, which also said the two men had put the finish off until Casey's court was ready; the plan to finish elsewhere is the Irish chapter's business. Casey was no newcomer to court-keeping: by December 1875 he had described a Brooklyn court of his own to *the Herald*.

The court stayed the center of the game through the next winter. The *Evening World* gave its address on 21 December 1888 as 297 Degraw Street. In May 1888 a New Zealand paper, the *Evening Post*, had printed among its American mail news that J. A. Keenan, handball champion of Australia, had offered to play Casey for the championship of the world; no report of a match has been found. In December the *World* announced that William Courtney and Lawlor would play fifteen games for $100 at Casey's court, and *the Sun* reported the first seven there on Christmas Day, Courtney winning four of them. The rest were to be played on New Year's Day. The paper said the next morning that Courtney, ill, had forfeited. In March 1889 the *Sun* gave notice that a club tournament would begin the following week, in three classes, each winner to receive a gold medal from the club. I have found no report of who won.

Then *the Sun* set about changing the game. On Monday, 27 October 1890 it printed an article headed "A Change in the Style of Playing Demanded by Experts." It argued that hard serving had taken over, the man who drove the ball hardest off the front wall so that it could not be recovered being counted a wonderful player. It proposed either a line on the front wall four or five feet above the floor, which every serve would have to clear, or a rule that the server stand at the ace line. By the paper's later reports Casey was heartily in favor, and an exhibition at his court on 20 November was played under the new service rule. On 1 December the paper said that Edward J. Sweeney, who kept the Murray Hill court, and William Courtney, who kept the South Brooklyn court, were both praising the rule, and that the old-school players had raised a great outcry. On Sunday, 4 January 1891 the Brooklyn Handball Club met in Degraw Street, Casey presiding, and resolved unanimously that every game in its court would be played under the new rules, the *Sun* reported next morning; Murray Hill and South Brooklyn had already fallen in. Every report of the adoption that I have found is the *Sun*'s own, on the fortunes of its own proposal.

On Tuesday evening, 1 March 1892, about two dozen men met in Casey's parlor to reorganize the club. Casey proposed Major John Carmody for president and he was elected, with Col. Thomas Meehan vice-president, Frank J. Prendergast secretary and Casey treasurer. By the *Sun*'s account of 3 March the club meant to be so thoroughly organized, and its rules of play so perfected, that others would follow it, and the president named a committee on the playing ball. Six months later the same paper, reporting a doubles game at the club's court on Thursday, 8 September, wrote that the service was "done from the short line." It is the earliest use of the term I have found. Whether that line is the second line of the 1893 book's rule is not shown.

The book came next. On 31 October 1893 the *Jersey City News* announced that the next number of Spalding's Dime Athletic Library would be *The Game of Handball and How to Play It*, by Maurice W. Deshong, with articles on the construction of a regulation court and on the rules. The rules in the book call for a ball an inch and seven-eighths across and an ounce and five-eighths in weight, smaller and heavier than the *Sun*'s of 1889, and for service from within two parallel lines. They are followed by a passage on the ball the Brooklyn Handball Club used. Spalding's official rules for 1894 reprinted them.

In January 1894 the *Sun* reprinted from the *Chicago Herald* a letter from Casey to a correspondent in Chicago, written after a match there fell through over the rules. There had been no rule in his court for five years, he wrote, "except The Sun's rules, as they are called," and six courts within ten miles of his own played under them. He had learned under the old rules and played Lawlor under them; he said no match would be played in his court under any others, and that the courts of any account in the country, as far off as St. Louis and San Francisco, kept the rules of the Brooklyn Handball Club. Five years back from January 1894 reaches roughly to the *Sun*'s printing of March 1889, not to the service reform of 1890, though Casey may have been speaking in round figures. In 1895 the *Sun* reported a Cork paper calling for a world conference on a code, and in April 1896 it reported a convention planned at Cork for July that would probably adopt its own; those belong to the Irish side of this record.

The A.A.U. did not write the rules it played its first championship under. A Washington paper noted on 9 November 1896 that the Union now exercised jurisdiction over amateur handball. In the small hours of Tuesday, 17 November, after a session that ran past midnight, its board of governors created a handball championship on the application of the Jersey City club and, in *the Sun*'s words of the next morning, "adopted THE SUN's rules of competition." Which text the board meant, the code the paper printed in 1889 or that code as reformed in the service rule of 1890 and voted in by the Brooklyn club in 1891, the printed sources do not settle, and the reformed text has not been found in print. The 1889 printing repeats the code of Ed. James's *Manual of Sporting Rules* of 1873, in the form Spalding's *Hand Book* gave it in 1886 with a scoring rule added, and differs from that form only in the weight of the ball and a few trimmed words; who added the weight is not known. The evidence is the *Sun*'s single report of the board meeting and a collation of the three printed texts made for this record, and the report's wording leaves open whether the board meant the playing rules or only the conditions of the tournament. Whether the club's committee wrote anything of its own is a separate question: on 27 December 1896 the *Tribune* said the ball the club had adopted and the rules its committee had formulated were recognized as standard wherever the game was played, and no committee text has been found.

I have not found who put the code in the *Sun* in 1889. It was not the club's composition, since the text is James's, but whether Casey, a club member or the paper's handball writer supplied the copy is unknown. The reformed text of 1890 and 1891 has never turned up in print. The only full printings read are of the code before the reform: the *Sun*'s of 1889 and a Houston daily's of 13 March 1898, which printed twenty-three numbered rules for readers who had asked for them and agrees with Spalding's 1886 form rather than with the *Sun*'s page. The *Brooklyn Daily Eagle* for 1887 to 1896 has not been read for this record, and its pages are where a club rules committee, or a vote of the members, would most likely show up.

The application had come from the Jersey City club, which I take to be the club of John Egan's handball court at 223 Mercer Street; the link is inferred from the place and the names, and no paper read states it. The court had been announced by the *Jersey City News* on 29 August 1893 as opening that night, with Casey and Lawlor among the experts invited. The board's tournament was first set for 12 December. On 27 December 1896 the *Tribune* announced it for 7 January 1897 at the Jersey City Handball Court. Within three weeks the Brooklyn club lost its president: Major Carmody died on 15 January 1897, the *Sun* reported the next morning.

## Where to next

- Previous: [Racket courts and saloon alleys](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/record/01-racket-courts-and-saloon-alleys.md) (Casey opens his Degraw Street court, 29 November 1887)
- Next: [The game in Ireland, seen from both shores](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/record/03-the-game-in-ireland-seen-from-both-shores.md) (the 1890 tour, told once, in this chapter)
- Also continues in: [Amateurs and world champions](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/record/04-amateurs-and-world-champions.md) (the A.A.U. board of 17 November 1896)

## What this draws on

### Eras

- [Casey's court, the Brooklyn Handball Club and The Sun's rules (1887-1896)](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/eras/us-casey-brooklyn-and-the-suns-rules.md)

### Threads

- [Who writes the rules: court keeper, newspaper, federation, board](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/threads/who-writes-the-rules.md)
- [The serve: one ace line, then two lines, then the short line](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/threads/the-serve.md)

### People

- [Phil Casey](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/phil-casey.md)
- [John Lawlor](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/john-lawlor.md)
- [William Courtney](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/william-courtney.md)
- [James Dunne](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/james-dunne.md)
- [Edward J. Sweeney](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/edward-j-sweeney.md)
- [John C. Carmody](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/john-c-carmody.md)
- [John Egan](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/john-egan.md)
- [Thomas F. Cook](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/people/thomas-f-cook.md)

### Organizations

- [Brooklyn Handball Club](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/organizations/brooklyn-handball-club.md)
- [Amateur Athletic Union of the United States](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/organizations/aau.md)
- [Jersey City Handball Club](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/organizations/jersey-city-handball-club.md)

### Courts and places

- [Phil Casey's court](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/places/phil-caseys-court-brooklyn.md)
- [Jersey City Handball Court](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/places/jersey-city-handball-court.md)
- [Sweeny's Murray Hill Handball and Racket Court](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/places/sweeneys-murray-hill-159-e-35th.md)

### Rulebook editions

- [Hand Ball Rules](https://handball.theperfectship.com/rulebooks/james-fourwall-1873.md)
- [Hand Ball](https://handball.theperfectship.com/rulebooks/spalding-fourwall-1886.md)
- [The set rules of the game](https://handball.theperfectship.com/rulebooks/sun-fourwall-1889.md)
- [Rules and Explanations](https://handball.theperfectship.com/rulebooks/deshong-fourwall-1893.md)

### Dated facts

- 1875: Phil Casey tells the Herald how handball is played (21 aces, ace line about 30 ft from the front wall, three failed serves count out, ball 2 1/4 in) and lists the courts of Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Troy
- [1887: Casey beat Lawlor in the first seven of the eleven New York games, winning the international match and the 'championship of the world', at the Brooklyn Handball Club court, Degraw Street](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1887.md)
- [1887: The Brooklyn Handball Club (president Phil Casey) has a new court in Degraw Street, Brooklyn: 65 ft long, 24 ft wide, front wall 35 ft high faced with white marble, back wall 12 ft, white-pine floor](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1887.md)
- [1887: The Sun describes a 'regulation' handball court (c.40 ft high, 50-60 ft long, c.30 ft wide; a line across the court 25 ft from the front wall with 3-ft semicircles) and says handball 'has its own code of rules'](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1887.md)
- [1888: Casey's court is at 297 Degraw street, Brooklyn (the Brooklyn Handball Club court)](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1888.md)
- [1888: Courtney v Lawlor, first seven of fifteen games for $100 at Casey's court, Brooklyn; Courtney won four of the seven](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1888.md)
- [1888: J. A. Keenan, 'champion handball player of Australia', challenges Casey for the championship of the world](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1888.md)
- [1889: Courtney, ill, forfeits the second part of the fifteen-game Courtney v Lawlor match at Casey's court](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1889.md)
- [1889: The Brooklyn Handball Club holds a three-class tournament at its Degraw Street court, March-April 1889, with gold medals presented by the club](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1889.md)
- [1889: The Sun prints 'the set rules of the game' of handball: 21 aces, ball about 2 in and 1 1/3 oz, ace line in the centre of the court, hand-out/ace scoring, hinders, a referee chosen by the players](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1889.md)
- [1890: By 21 Nov 1890 Brooklyn courts play under the Sun's new service rule (serve only from the ace line); Casey endorses it](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1890.md)
- [1890: The Sun of 29 Nov 1890 notes that Phil Casey's Brooklyn court opened 'three years ago to-day', 29 Nov 1887, the night the first international match (Casey v. Lawlor of Dublin) was decided in it; the earlier games of the match had been played in Dublin on 6 Aug 1887](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1890.md)
- [1890: The Sun proposes ending hard serving: a front-wall line or service only from the ace line](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1890.md)
- 1891: Brooklyn Handball Club resolves unanimously to play all games under the Sun's new rules; Murray Hill and South Brooklyn courts already adopted them
- 1892: Brooklyn Handball Club reorganised in Casey's parlor: Major John Carmody president, Col. Thomas Meehan vice-president, Frank J. Prendergast secretary, Philip Casey treasurer; committee on the playing ball
- 1892: Sun reports a doubles game at the Brooklyn club with service 'done from the short line'
- [1893: John Egan's new handball court at 223 Mercer Street, Jersey City, opens with Phil Casey, Lawlor, Delaney, McQuade and others invited](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1893.md)
- [1893: Spalding's Dime Athletic Library announces 'Handball and How to Play It' by Maurice W. Deshong (contents listed)](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1893.md)
- 1894: Phil Casey writes that there has been no rule in his court for five years except 'The Sun's rules', which govern all six courts near him; leading courts everywhere follow the Brooklyn Handball Club's rules
- [1896: A.A.U. Board creates an amateur handball championship on the Jersey City club's application and adopts The Sun's rules of competition](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1896.md)
- [1896: Brooklyn Handball Club's ball and committee rules called the standard 'wherever the game is played'](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1896.md)
- [1896: The A.A.U. takes jurisdiction over amateur handball (reported 9 Nov 1896)](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1896.md)
- [1897: Death of John C. Carmody, 'the Major', President of the Brooklyn Handball Club](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1897.md)
- [1898: Houston Daily Post prints a 23-rule handball code (ace-line service, foot allowed, referee chosen by the players)](https://handball.theperfectship.com/history/years/1898.md)

### Open questions it touches

- H-89 (narrowed): The 'set rules of the game' printed in The Sun of 17 March 1889 p.7 (21 aces; ball c.2 in, 1 1/3 oz; ace line in the centre of the court; hinders; referee chosen by the players) are the rules of the Brooklyn Handball Club or of Casey's circle, and are the 'rules formulated by [its] committee' that the Tribune of 27 Dec 1896 calls standard (H-01), not an 1886 publication
- H-91 (open): The Sun (New York) proposed on 27 Oct 1890 (article A Change in the Style of Play) that service be restricted, either by a line on the front wall or by compelling the server to stand at the ace line, and by 21 Nov 1890 the Brooklyn and Murray Hill courts played under it; the Brooklyn Handball Club voted on 4 Jan 1891 to play all games under the new rules; by Sept 1892 the Sun speaks of service from the short line. The Sun line of the 1893 rules (H-70) is this reform, so the 1893 second service line is the Sun short line of 1890-92, not an A.A.U. innovation
- H-78 (open): The first A.A.U. handball championship (Jersey City, 7-8 Jan 1897) was played under rules the A.A.U. adopted from The Sun (New York) - 'The Board adopted THE SUN's rules of competition' (A.A.U. Board, 16-17 Nov 1896) - not under rules drafted by the A.A.U. as the 1923 guide says (H-14); whether 'rules of competition' were playing rules or only tournament conditions is not stated
- H-87 (open): Casey v Lawlor (Cork racquet court, Grattan Street, 4 Aug 1887, 21 games for 400 pounds/ $2000 a side; Lawlor won 6-4 in Cork) was concluded at Sweeney's court, 159 East 35th Street, New York, in Nov 1887 with Casey winning the first seven games and the match, played alternately with the American large ball and the small Irish ball
- H-94 (supported): The Houston Daily Post's 23 numbered handball rules (13 Mar 1898, p.15) were set from a NUMBERED printing of the code first seen unnumbered in The Sun, 17 Mar 1889 (The set rules of the game (1889)), not from the Sun page: the Post numbers the scoring rule 'Rule 4 1/2' and has no Rule 8, and its Rule 7 joins the openings of the Sun's two 'stops the ball intentionally' rules (eye-skip), so its exemplar ran 1-23 with 4 1/2 inserted (24 rules, the Sun's order). The 4 1/2 implies the scoring rule was added to an earlier 23-rule numbered list. The Post's other changes (weight of the ball omitted; '(after entering the court)'; 'until' for 'before'; 'for the striker' added to Rule 10, its hand-stroke sentence omitted) may be that exemplar's revisions or the paper's
- H-70 (open): The second service line of the 1893 rules ('within the two parallel lines', 'stepping beyond the inner line', Rules and Explanations (1893) R2) is the 'Line under the Sun's Rules', drawn six feet on the front-wall side of the half-court ace line, with the server standing between the two (1893 plate PDF p. 11; L403-412); it was introduced c.1890-1892 after a proposal in the New York Sun ('Until within a couple of years ago', L403; Casey's endorsement L811-815)
- H-11 (supported): The "Handball Rules and Explanations" in Spalding's Official Sporting Rules 1894 (James E. Sullivan (comp.), Spalding's Official Sporting Rules ~L6150) reprint Deshong's 1893 "Rules and Explanations" (Maurice W. Deshong, The Game of Hand Ball and How to Play It (1893) L606); i.e. the Spalding 1894 four-wall rules (no edition record yet) are the same text as `Rules and Explanations (1893)`

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- [The Sun (New York), 18 November 1896, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1896-11-18/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [The Sun (New York), 2 January 1889, p. 6](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1889-01-02/ed-1/?sp=6)
- [The Sun (New York), 2 January 1891, p. 6](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1891-01-02/ed-1/?sp=6)
- [The Sun (New York), 20 August 1895, p. 5](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1895-08-20/ed-1/?sp=5)
- [The Sun (New York), 21 November 1890, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1890-11-21/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [The Sun (New York), 23 September 1895, p. 5](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1895-09-23/ed-1/?sp=5)
- [The Sun (New York), 24 November 1880, p. 1](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1880-11-24/ed-1/?sp=1)
- [The Sun (New York), 26 December 1888, p. 3](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1888-12-26/ed-1/?sp=3)
- [The Sun (New York), 27 January 1896, p. 9](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1896-01-27/ed-1/?sp=9)
- [The Sun (New York), 27 November 1887, p. 11](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1887-11-27/ed-1/?sp=11)
- [The Sun (New York), 27 October 1890, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1890-10-27/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [The Sun (New York), 29 November 1890, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1890-11-29/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [The Sun (New York), 3 March 1892, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1892-03-03/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [The Sun (New York), 3 September 1893, p. 8](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1893-09-03/ed-2/?sp=8)
- [The Sun (New York), 30 November 1887, p. 3](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1887-11-30/ed-1/?sp=3)
- [The Sun (New York), 5 April 1896, p. 30](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1896-04-05/ed-1/?sp=30)
- [The Sun (New York), 5 August 1887, p. 3](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1887-08-05/ed-1/?sp=3)
- [The Sun (New York), 5 January 1891, p. 6](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1891-01-05/ed-1/?sp=6)
- [The Sun (New York), 9 January 1897, p. 4](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1897-01-09/ed-1/?sp=4)
- [United States Wall Ball Association, "Rules & Conduct" (seen 27 October 2026)](https://uswallball.org/rules)
- [US Handball Association, "Current Rules" (Wayback snapshot of 31 January 1997)](https://web.archive.org/web/19970131180607/http://www.ushandball.org:80/handball/RULES.html)
- [US Handball Association, "Four-Wall Rulebook" (seen 28 October 2026)](https://www.ushandball.org/four-wall-rulebook/)
- [US Handball Association, "National Champions" (seen 28 October 2026)](https://www.ushandball.org/about/national-champions/)
- [US Handball Association, "One-Wall Rulebook" (seen 28 October 2026)](https://www.ushandball.org/learn-handball/one-wall-rulebook/)
- [Wexford GAA Handball, "Playing Rules" PDF (uploaded August 2016) (seen 28 October 2026)](https://wexfordgaahandball.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Playing-Rules.pdf)
- [WorldCat, search for AAU official rules handball (seen 28 October 2026)](https://search.worldcat.org/)

## Corrections

Found a mistake, or a source we missed? Email perfectshipllc@gmail.com with the subject "History correction: Casey's court and the Sun's rules (/history/record/02-caseys-court-and-the-suns-rules/)". Please name the page and, if you can, the source.