Early baseball borrowed much of its rules and terminology from popular European games, but it was in America that it solidified into a sport in its own right. Many modern rules of the game, including a game length of nine innings, stem from the middle of the 19th century.
Innings
Baseball borrowed the word "innings," among other terminology, from the English game cricket. In cricket as in baseball, one team is at bat, while the other plays the field. The batting team is "in," and its turn at bat is called an innings. "Innings" is singular and plural in the game of cricket, while the singular form in baseball is "inning."
Early Rules
When the sport was in its infancy, each baseball organization created and played by its own rules. Adam Cartwright, founder of the New York Knickerbockers, wrote the first known baseball rules in 1845. In these Knickerbocker rules, the first team to score 21 runs at the end of "an equal number of hands" won the game. Cartwright is considered the father of baseball, and his rules the basis on which the modern game is played.
Innings in Baseball
It's not clear when the term "innings" was first used in baseball, but it appeared in a description of a baseball game in an 1845 edition of the "New York Morning News." As baseball grew in popularity and more teams formed, the organizations felt a need to standardize baseball rules. In 1854, the Knickerbockers and two other New York teams -- Eagle and Gotham -- met to confer about the regulations of the game as played in that state. The term "inning" was introduced in the updated 1854 Knickerbocker rules, but there was still no limit on the number of innings to be played in a game.
Nine Innings
While many teams played by the Knickerbocker or New York rules in the 1840s and 1850s, others didn't, and every team wanted a say in the development of the sport's regulations. In 1857, New York baseball organizations formed the National Association of Base Ball Players, which would grow to include teams from throughout the U.S. The NABBP met every year to discuss and update baseball rules. In its first set of rules, which went into effect in the 1858 baseball season, games played by NABBP teams lasted nine innings.
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