Baseball: Origins and History
Competitive athletic game of skill played with a hard ball and a bat by two opposing nine-player teams, widely regarded as the American national sport. Among the earliest games to be played professionally in the U.S., baseball is also the most popular; it daily attracts crowds of fans to parks and stadiums where it is played, is followed by millions more over radio and television, and is reported extensively in almost every newspaper in the country. By no means, however, is the game limited to a spectator-sport category. Baseball is played by amateurs of all ages, including numerous sandlot clubs and athletic associations, virtually every high school and college in the U.S., and scores of junior leagues. Games of baseball spontaneously organized by friends or neighbors on a summer afternoon have become part of the typical American scene. The game is now also played almost everywhere in the world.
Although the modern game is indigenous to the U.S. and developed gradually, the actual origins of baseball are relatively obscure. The historical evidence indicates that in its earlier forms baseball represented a modified synthesis of cricket and rounders. Both games were imported from Great Britain to the American colonies and have features in common with baseball and all its early American variants. For example, both cricket and rounders, as well as baseball, involve contending teams equipped with a ball and a bat, in one form or another, with which to strike the ball. In addition, all three games require the use of a level playing field containing stations or bases to which the players advance in their attempts to score.
By the end of the 18th century several primitive varieties of baseball, each known by a different name, were being played in the U.S. One version popular in New York City was called one old cat, or one o' cat. By 1835 other varieties, such as town ball and New York ball, were played by established teams in the larger eastern cities. Most early variations of baseball were played on a square field, with stakes at the corners serving as stations and a striker's box situated about midway between the first and fourth stations. Shortly after 1840 the stakes, which frequently caused injuries to the players, were replaced by stones. Sand-filled sacks were later substituted for the stones. These sacks soon became known as bases, and thereafter the players began calling the game baseball. The exact time and place of the origin of this term are, however, unknown. But in 2001, the New York Times reported that new evidence, based on newspaper articles in the National Advocate and New-York Gazette and General Advertiser dated 1823 that referred to a game called "base ball," had been discovered that suggested that some form of baseball was known in the 1820s and being played in New York City.
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Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War Collection
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Abner Doubleday
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The next important development in the history of the game occurred in 1845, when the Knickerbocker Baseball Club was organized in New York City. The team sponsored by this organization established the foundation of modern baseball, but the origin of the rules by which the team played has been the subject of considerable controversy. In 1907 an investigating commission headed by A. G. Mills (1844-1929), a former National League president, reported that certain basic rules of play as well as the design of the first diamond (the placement of the bases on the field formed a playing area in this shape) had been devised at Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839. The American soldier Abner Doubleday, then a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, was credited with establishing the ground rules. Some authorities later contended that the findings of the commission were based on inconclusive evidence. At any rate, in recognition of Doubleday's purported contribution to the sport, Cooperstown was later selected as the site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Subsequent investigators attributed the design of the field to Alexander Joy Cartwright (1820-92) of New York City, a member of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, and the playing regulations to a committee of that club.
The Knickerbockers played their first game on June 19, 1846, at Hoboken, N.J., losing to the New York Nine, another New York City club. The playing field, the position of the players, and a number of the rules closely resembled the corresponding features of modern baseball. About two years after their first game the Knickerbockers adopted a rule eliminating plugging, the practice of retiring a base runner from play by hitting the runner with a thrown ball. In 1849 the Knickerbocker team introduced the first baseball uniforms.
Baseball became increasingly popular in the U.S. between 1850 and 1860. The National Association of Baseball Players, representing various clubs, was organized in 1857 for the purpose of drafting a standard code of playing rules. A rule was adopted in 1859 prohibiting remuneration of players. In that year Amherst College and Williams College played the first intercollegiate baseball game, which Amherst won.
Professional baseball was introduced in 1869 by the Cincinnati Red Stockings, a club that had been organized on an amateur basis three years earlier. Other professional clubs were organized in various parts of the country, and in 1871 the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was organized, representing clubs in Boston; Philadelphia; Chicago; Brooklyn, N.Y.; New York City; Cleveland, Ohio; and four other cities. This event marked the end of amateurism as a significant force in the game's development.
As in many other sports, a league in baseball signifies an association of teams that compete chiefly among themselves. Early in 1876 a group of influential club owners, headed by William A. Hulbert (1832-82) of Chicago, founded the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, causing the collapse of the National Association. The National League, which is still in operation, then represented clubs in Boston; Hartford, Conn.; Philadelphia; New York City; Saint Louis, Mo.; Chicago; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Louisville, Ky. Chicago won the first league championship in 1876.
During the next quarter of a century numerous other leagues were organized throughout the U.S. Among the first of these were the International League and the Northwestern League, both composed of teams representing smaller cities than the clubs in the National League and known for that reason as minor leagues. In 1882 the American Association was established as a major league. Two years later, the champions of this league met the National League champions in the first series of postseason games. After the American Association disbanded in 1891, the National League clubs played each other at the end of the season.
The American League was founded in 1900 and the following year demanded that the National League recognize it as an equal. The original eight American League teams were Chicago; Milwaukee, Wis.; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Boston; and Baltimore, Md. Recognition of the American League by the National League was gained in 1903, when the modern World Series, a postseason play-off between the two leagues, was inaugurated.
An attempt to maintain a third major league ended in failure in 1915 with the dissolution of the Federal League, organized in 1913.
Several professional all-black teams were organized, the first being the Cuban Giants, in Long Island, N.Y., in 1885. In 1920 the Negro National League was formed, and in 1921 the Negro Eastern League; from 1924 to 1932 they played an annual world series. They were succeeded in the late 1930s by the Negro American League and another Negro National League and by several smaller organizations in the South. Many of the teams played year-round--in the winters in Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela. Among the great players on these teams were the catcher Josh Gibson (1911-47), credited with a season total of 85 home runs; the outfielder James (Cool Papa) Bell (1903-91); and the pitcher Satchel Paige, the only one of these to join a formerly all-white team.
The first black players in the major leagues were the brothers Welday Walker (d. 1937) and Moses F. Walker (1857-1924), who played for the Toledo, Ohio, club of the American Association in 1884. Not until 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, were there other blacks on any major league teams.
Starting in 1971, players and other figures associated with the Negro Leagues were eligible for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. From 1971 through 2001 a total of 18 figures from the Negro Leagues were inducted, starting with Satchel Paige; in 2006 an additional 17 figures were inducted, having been chosen by a 12-man panel after an intensive five-year study.