How did baseball originate? Invention and historical development

According to the story, he later joined the American Civil War and became a hero. But according to some views, baseball wasn't actually invented by Abner Doubleday. He himself never claimed to have invented baseball, nor does he mention in his diaries that he developed a new sport. So let's find out how this game played all over the world came to be.

The game of baseball seems to date back to the English game of rounders, which became popular in the United States in the 18th century and is often referred to as "town ball" or "base", although some sports historians disagree. Rounders were first brought to the New England region of America by colonists and introduced as a children's game. Rounders and derivatives were played in schoolyards and college campuses during the time of the American Revolution. By the middle of the 19th century, it was even more popular with job-seeking men in newly industrializing cities.

The first reference to baseball in America appeared in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1791. The town ordinance forbids playing "baseball" within 80 meters of the Town Hall. By the 1800s, Americans had begun playing unofficially in teams, by local rules.

The pioneer in the modernization of baseball was a man named volunteer firefighter Alexander Cartwright. He founded the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, a social club aimed at New York City's upper middle class. Cartwright published the first baseball rules and regulations in 1845. These have also been adopted for the modern game of baseball. There were other clubs and they played by their own rules. That's why different versions of the game appeared. But the most popular baseball soon became Cartwright's Knickerbockers style (later called the New York style).

First baseball game

The first recorded baseball game was played in 1846 at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey. In this game, Cartwright's Knickerbockers lost 23 to 1 to the New York Baseball Club (made up of cricketers). As more teams were formed over the next decade, more organizations emerged. In 1858, the first baseball league, the National Association of Baseball Players (NABBL), was formed. Although it started out as an amateur sport, some clubs started paying their best players "under the table" as club owners began to generate revenue from the audience. By 1869, the owner of the Cincinnati Red Stockings paid all players openly, making it the first professional team of the baseball era.

With the involvement of money, the sport began to change rapidly. In 1876, the National League was formed and made its way into the major modern league known today.