HISTORY

What we know today as Baseball was actually developed slowly over a period of many, many years.  It's an American adaption of two English games: rounders and cricket.

The first game resembling Baseball  took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 19, 1846.  The New York Nine clobbered the New York Knickerbockers by a 23-1 score.  The game was played according to rules drafted up by Alexander J. Cartwright, a surveyor and amateur athlete.  Although the concenus is that Abner Doubleday invented Baseball, it was Cartwright, not Doubleday, who first put in place the present playing field dimensions and established the basic rules of the game.

The first professional baseball team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, a team that toured the U.S.  in 1869 and failed to lose a single game all year.  Soon, baseball began to attract so many fans that in 1876 the National League was founded.  Over the  years, the rules were gradually changed  and  by about 1900 the game was more or less the same as we see it today.  In 1901 a second majojr league, the American League, was established.

Taken in part from:  Ritter, S. Lawrence.  The Story of Baseball.  New York, William Morrow & Comapny, 1983.

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