Baseball has often been considered as the Great American Pastime and it is funny to think that the exact history of baseball is mostly unknown. Most historians believe that it is roughly based on an English game known as rounders. The game grew in stature in the north east around the late 1700s and early 1800s. The name of the sport was changed a few times from base, to roundball to cricket throughout the beginnings of baseball history.
In the early nineteenth century a number of cities started to form teams and leagues. The sport began to grow in popularity to the extent that the players and patrons of the game made the decision to formalize the specifics of the game. As such in 1845 Alexander Cartwright formulated a list of rules that all teams were to follow and interestingly a number of those rules are still followed today.
Cartwright is thought to have been the original founder of the game and not Abner Doubleday. Cartwright was a fireman who formulated the basic concept of the game and is credited with creating the first teams that used to play in New York with other firemen. He was credited with forming the Knickerbockers Baseball Club which sculpted baseball history. He then decided to take advantage of the riches of the California Gold Rush and began spreading the game westward. His travels helped to expand this new game throughout the country.
The very first game of record actually took place a year after Cartwright created his team in 1846. In a sad twist of fate his team the Knickerbockers lost to the Baseball Club in a game at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ. As word spread of this highly entertaining game it gained more popularity and began to have many more participants. As a result, in the 1850s a number of teams in the northeast organized a gathering to discuss rules and the expansion of the game and in 1858 they founded the National Assoc. of Baseball Players, which is deemed to be the first baseball league ever created in the history of baseball.
The sport blossomed in the late 1850s as membership grew from 100 to over 400 teams and then the Civil War happened. This decimated the interest in baseball in the 1860's as there was obviously no time for games. Yet, interestingly though baseball began to travel to other areas throughout the country. When the war ended the sport began to blossom once more. Teams grew and cities around the country started to take an interest and began to play one another.
The NABP was initially supposed to only be comprised of amateur athletes but like any sport it became very competitive and the best players were compensated for their efforts.
The sport started to change in 1869 when the Cincinnati Red Stockings (soon to be the Cincinnati Reds) made the decision to become the first professional team and pay their athletes. The Wright brothers who were the oweners of the team decided to recruit the greatest talent from around the country and they challenged all comers. This team was so successful that they went 65 and 0. With such a small degree of competition the idea of creating an entirely professional league was initiated and in 1871 the National Association was created.
In 1876 the National League was founded as the National Association was dissolved. The National League which is still in existence today had a stronghold on all the major cities of the time and attracted the best players. In the early 1900s the American and National league were begun which as we all know still remains. These changes in the 1900s established the two leagues, the world series and began the practise of player contracts. The popularity of baseball had by then firmly begun and was well on its way to becoming known as the Great American Pastime.
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The author, Archie Rees, is an avid fan of American Baseball. If you are in the market for New York Yankees Merchandise, take a look at his site.