The Smoke Around Baseball's First Game

The Smoke Around Baseball's First Game

Historical claims to founding the game are as numerous as stiches on a baseball. There is a resemblance to the ancient game of rounders, a 1744 British children’s rhyme entitled baseball and a 1791 municipal code in Pittsfield, Massachusetts prohibiting “wicket, cricket, baseball, football, cat, fives or any other game from within 80 yards of the town meeting house.”

Albert Spalding’s commission dubiously promoted Abner Doubleday as having invented the game, based solely on a letter, which didn’t mention a diamond, positions or rules, written years later by a witness recalling his memories as a five-year old boy in 1839.

What’s not in question is that Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr., a volunteer firefighter and bank clerk in Hoboken, New Jersey, codified the rules of baseball. He set the bases 90 feet apart, chose nine innings and picked nine players as a team. Earlier versions did not have a strike zone. Batters could wait all day for a perfect pitch. Cartwright drew foul lines. He prohibited a fielder from recording an out by bouncing a ball off a runner. According to his plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cartwright is indeed “The Father of Modern Baseball.”

On June 19, 1846, the first recorded baseball game based on Cartwright's rules was played on Hoboken's Elysian Fields. The locals primarily consisted of firemen based at the Knickerbockers fire station. A visiting club from New York defeated the Knickerbockers 23-1. Cartwright umpired.

Baseball developed steadily as the years marched on. The Knickerbockers introduced the wool baseball uniform in 1849. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became America’s first professional baseball club. Two years later, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was established as the sport’s first major league. In 1875, the first baseball glove, an unpadded leather work glove, was worn by Charles Waite. The National League formed in 1876, the American League in 1901 and the modern World Series dates back to 1903.

And the rest as they say is history......

By the way, Elysian Fields was eventually replaced by a coffee factory. But follow this link to see its former site in Hoboken, New Jersey.

www.virtualglobetrotting.com/map/site-of-the-first-organized-baseball-game/view/google