Baseball is traditionally regarded as an American game, but let us examine the two claims of 'parentage' closely.
The earliest known reference to rounders was in 1774 when J Newbery's A Little Pocket Book, published in London, contained a woodcut of the game and was captioned with a verse entitled 'Base-ball'. This book was definitely published at least twice in the United States before the end of the eighteenth century.
A description of the rules of rounders was included in The boy's Own Book in 1829 and many features of the game were common to those of baseball. The distance between the bases in rounders are somewhat shorter than in baseball but the shape of the playing area is similar, with the bowler (pitcher in baseball) taking up a similar position. So far, then, everything points to baseball stemming from rounders.
That is the English claim to being the founders of baseball. Now for the American case. Oliver Wendell Holmes is believed to have played baseball at Harvard University in 1829 after reading a copy of The Boy's Own Book. He is said to have modified the playing area into a diamond shape.
But there is another claimant: a west point cadet called Abner Doubleday, who claimed to have laid out the first diamond-shaped pitch at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. he maintained that he invented the game spontaneously, and without any knowledge of rounders. But that was ten years after the rules of rounders appeared in The Boy's Own Book, so can his claim be taken seriously?
It is known that 'base-ball' was played in both England and America in the early 18th century, but we have already established that 'base-ball' was the forerunner of rounders. The question that needs to be answered is: was 'base-ball' also the forerunner of baseball?
Needless to say, England and America each continued to maintain that they had invented the game, and a special commission was set up in the United Sates in 1905 to try and establish when and where baseball was really born. They found in Doubleday's favor and declared that baseball was born at Cooperstown, New York in 1839.
The first basic rules of the modern-day game were drawn up by a surveyor. Alexander Joy Cartwright junior, on 23 September 1845. Not only did he draw up the game's first twenty rules that day, but he also founded the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York, the sports first organized team... it was a busy day for Cartwright.
Prior to Cartwright's rules the most popular version of baseball was the Massachusetts game, in which a player was out if hit by a thrown ball! Cartwright abolished this rule and introduced the tag rule instead. But his most important innovation was the three strike rule.
The first match played under Cartwright's rules was played at the Elysian Fields, Hoboked, New Jersey on 19 June, and the Knickerbockers were humiliated by 23 tuns to 1 by the newly formed New York Base ball Club.
Other clubs sprang up in no time, particularly in the north east, and on 10 march 1858 25 clubs formed the first baseball league, when the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players was established. It was not long before the game became commercialized, and on 20 July 1858 fifteen hundred spectators paid 50 cents each to watch Brooklyn play the New York All Stars at Long Island's Fashion race course, ion the first game to command a paying attendance.
Professionalism followed and in 1869 the first wholly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed, with players averaging $890 in the first season... the rewards for top players were high even in those days. The man put in charge of assembling the Red Stockings was an Englishman, Harry Wright. Born in Sheffield, he emigrated to the United States as a youngster and later joined the Knickerbockers before taking over as player-manager of the Red Stockings. He is regarded as the father of professional baseball. With the development of professional teams it followed that a professional league would be born, and on 17 March 1871 the National Association of Professional Base-Ball Players was formed as a result of a meeting on Broadway, New York. The Philadelphia Athletics were the first champions But the Boston Red Stockings won the next four championships, before the league folded amongst scandals of match fixing, heavy gambling and drunkenness among the players. Baseball was at rock bottom, but Chicago William Hulbert businessman was determined to resurrect and restore it to its former glory.
Hulbert formed the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs in 1876. That same National League still thrives today despite the challenges of other Leagues over the years. One of Hulbert's first regulations restricted the franchising of teams only to towns or cities with populations of at least 75,000. The new league also prevented players from moving from one club to another during the season.
A rival American Association was set up in 1882 and in 1890 a third league threatened to disrupt baseball when the National Brotherhood of Professional Players formed a league. With three leagues in existence baseball was in a financial mess. Trade wars existed between the teams and leagues, but after only one season the National League absorbed the Professional Players League. Barely a year later The American Association folded, and peace reigned until the turn of the century.
Another trade war and internal struggles within the National League in 1903 led to their recognizing another new league, the American League, which had been set up in 1901 by Byron 'Ben' Johnson. The two leagues fought each other for two years but in 1903 settled their differences and signed an agreement to control Organize Baseball. Those two leagues still exist today in the United States.
A third league, the Federal League, was formed in 1914, but the big two leagues fought it and it survived only two years. Baseball developed rapidly as a spectator sport in the 1920's, and the old wooden stadiums were pulled down to make way for new larger concrete ones. Fans poured in by the thousand to see such great names as Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and the greatest of them all, Babe Ruth. on 1987, more than fifty years after he retired, Ruth topped a poll 10,000 readers of the USA Today as the greatest sports star of all time. Furthermore, in that same poll, 58 per cent of readers said babe Ruth's bat was the one piece of sporting equipment they would most like to own.
The biggest event in the US sporting calendar is the World Series, held in October. It is a best-of-seven matches between the winners of the National League and American League. After a regular season of 162 matches, the top teams in each league do battle in a knockout competition to see which team should represent the league in the World Series.
First held in 1903, and won by the Boston Red Sox, the World Series has been dominated by the New York Yankees. Men like Joe di Maggio, Mickey Mantle and 'Yogi' Berra were the backbone of the great Yankees teams in the 1950's.
Professional baseball in the United States has had its ups and downs over the years, particularly as a result of political in-fighting but it reached its lowest point in 1919 when a scandal broke over the 'fixing' of the World Series. The Chicago White Sox lost the series to the Cincinnati Reds, and eight members of the White Sox were found guilty of receiving bribes in what became known as the 'Black Sox Scandal'.
The man called in to help re-establish the credibility of baseball was Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former Federal Judge who was appointed the sole commissioner of Organized Baseball in the United States. One of his first tasks was to ban the eight White Sox players for life, even though a Chicago grand jury had failed to convict them in a farcical trial in which statements went missing and key witnesses fled the country! Landis remained commissioner up until the time of his death in 1944, and during his 25 years in office, credibility was returned to baseball.
By now you will probably have formed the opinion that baseball is entirely American. True, it is the national sport of the United Sates, and the professional game may have its roots there, but a very strong professional league exists in Japan, and many former US players are enjoying a second career in the Orient. Japan is also a stronghold of the amateur game, and the Japanese beat the United States in the baseball final when the sport was introduced as a demonstration sport at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. World amateur championships have been held since 1938, and have generally been dominated by Cuba. Australia, West Germany, Italy and Holland are also strongholds for the amateur game, and it is growing in popularity as a spectator and participant sport in Great Britain.
Many people believe that the game is new to England, but this is far from the truth. The first game of baseball in England took place in 1874 and was between two visiting teams from Boston and Philadelphia. The British Baseball Federation was founded in 1890, and many soccer grounds staged baseball matches. Several clubs had their own baseball teams, including Derby County, Aston Villa and Orient. When Derby moved from their original ground to their present one, the Baseball Ground, baseball was stilled played there and they carried on playing baseball and won the championship in 1895.
During World War One, matches between American servicemen attracted a lot of attention. in 1924, Stamford Bridge, Chelsea hosted a game between the Giants and the White Sox which was attended by King George V.
Baseball in Britain enjoyed tremendous popularity just before World War Two when more than 700 teams played in various leagues and large crowds would attend the big matches. After the War, however, only pockets of the country maintained the sport, thanks to the keen local enthusiasts; chief among these have been Merseyside, Humberside, Nottingham and London. But the turning point for British baseball was in 1986, following coverage of the New York Mets - Boston Red Sox World Series on Channel 4 television. That same year baseball was accepted as a full Olympic sport for the first time, and the revived interest in Britain led to the Scottish Amicable Assurance Society sponsoring a new National League. The first season was so successful that the company immediately took up their option to extend sponsorship for another three years. The large crowd that turned up for the National League final at the oval was proof that baseball is alive and well in Great Britain.
The success of baseball in the United States lies in its structure. The 'farm' system was introduced in the 1930's, whereby promising young players are assigned to minor league clubs owned by, or having a close relationship with, the major league teams. Budding young Babe Ruth's, however, start in the Little League and carry on playing right through high school and college. Sadly, schools in Britain do not encourage the playing of baseball to the same degree, but junior leagues do exist under jurisdiction of the BBF.
Like soccer and cricket, baseball is an easy game to play in the local park. you need only a bat and ball and a bit improvisation. Kids all over the United States start wielding a baseball bat as soon as they can walk. They all hope to emulate their own hero one day and become a star in their own right. Some make it. Some pass their dreams onto their children...
