Although games and activity involving a stick and ball have flourished throughout the ages, the roots of baseball lie firmly in the English games of rounders and cricket. Baseball first emerged on American soil in the late 1700s in the form of "town ball," a game played on the sandlots, school yards and village greens of the 13 colonies. Almost a century later, in 1866, author Charles A. Peverelly would describe baseball as "a game which is peculiarly suited to the American temperament and disposition. In short, the pastime suits the people, and the people suit the pastime."
The Inventor
Alexander Cartwright invented the game of baseball in the heart of midtown Manhattan. A bank teller, he also was a member of the New York Knickerbockers Fire Fighting Brigade who, in their free time, played town ball on a nearby vacant lot. In September 1845, Cartwright organized the firefighters into the New York Knickerbockers baseball team and formalized rules that became the foundation of baseball as it exists today.
The Rules
Cartwright's rules included a diamond-shaped infield with 42 paces (90 feet) between bases, three strikes for an out, three outs to an inning, fair and foul territory--even an umpire. The first game between two teams was played June 19, 1846, at Elysian Field in Hoboken, N.J. Its umpire was Cartwright, who watched the Knickerbockers lose to the New York Nine 23-1 and fined one player 6 cents for cursing.
The Myth
Abner Doubleday was a Union Army general who was the first to return cannon fire at Fort Sumter and a commander during the early fighting at Gettysburg. But he is more popularly known for baseball history he never claimed--that he invented the game in 1839 in a cow pasture in Cooperstown, N.Y. Writes famed baseball historian George B. Kirsch: "Scholars have since debunked (the) myth, which nonetheless remains powerful in the American imagination because of the efforts of Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown."
The Cincinnati Red Stockings
The first all-professional team in baseball history was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. They were managed by center fielder Harry Wright, an English cricket player who had become enamored with baseball soon after he immigrated to the United States. The Red Stockings toured the country on the newly constructed intercontinental railroad and won 130 straight games before losing to the Brooklyn Atlantics in 1870.
The National and American Leagues
Interest in amateur play had nurtured baseball for a quarter century by 1871, when the National Association--its first professional league--was formed. Four years later that was replaced by the National League, where businessmen proved baseball could be profitable with viable ticket prices, schedules, player contracts and policies. The turn of the century brought the American League in 1901, and after a brief period of player raids, both leagues agreed to co-exist in future growth of the game.
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