We all know that America’s greatest pastime is our good ole’ baseball, but some don’t realize that it’s also spreading across the world at a pretty rapid pace. In either case, baseball is growing and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop or even slow down.
To be apart of the game – all of us – is as simple as joining a local league (it won’t take long until your search comes up with a league near you that you likely never even knew existed) or even more simple, and less labor intensive is to just go and watch your favorite team play be it the professional major leagues or the local Little League team. If you’re an American, baseball is your sport to enjoy as a birth right.
The History of Baseball: How It All Began!
Whether you’re a huge fan of the sport, or just a passerby on weekends, you likely know that baseball got its start big start in NY. However, not everyone knows that baseball’s earliest recorded mention was from a 1792 law book in Pittsfield Massachusetts, where playing the game anywhere within 80 yards of the town’s meeting hall was deemed unlawful. Guess it makes sense not to have balls flying around the mayor of Pittsfield head.
Despite that early recorded history, Massachusetts doesn’t get to claim the first organized baseball club/team, but New York does get those bragging rights with the NY Knickerbockers being the first ball club to be organized. This club gave us the beginning of the rules that we are accustomed to playing by today. An important rule that we can all be thankful for is the “no soaking rule” which basically says that you can’t get a runner out by throwing the ball at him and whacking him with it.
Consequently, the NY Knickerbockers couldn’t win at their own game, and lost their first organized game against another NY team called the “The New York Nine”. Hoboken, NJ was the hosting city to this first game, and they are proud of it as when entering the city you come by signs that read: “Hoboken: Home of Baseball and Frank Sinatra”, or something like that.
It wasn’t long after that in 1857, sixteen NY ball clubs joined together to form baseball’s first organization which was aptly named the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). The organization governed baseball, as well as set up championship games between the sports best teams of the season.
In fact, the NABBP was the 1st professional sports league at all, and was based around the N.Y. style of play, which differed from the Massachusetts style which was played in Boston and throughout much of New England, as well as the Philly, PA style called town ball.
The Civil War certainly helped the growth of the league, where membership grew to nearly one hundred clubs during 1865, and then up to four-hundred clubs as members by the year 1867. Club membership had spread as far West as San Francisco by this time as well; which was fairly impressive for a two year time period.
At this time, no players were openly compensated, and the organization was basically an amateur organization, however some players were secretly compensated. This was the way until 1869, when clubs who wished to pay their players were then free to, which declared them as a professional team.
By the end of 1869, twelve of the best baseball teams had gone on as professional teams; and by 1871, because of strife between professional and amateur baseball teams, a seperate organization called the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was established, which led to the NABBP disbanding within a two year period.
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