From the sandlot to stadiums seating over fifty thousand people, the game of baseball has provided people of all ages with a common foundation; a sport we can all call our national pastime. Though its concept sounds simple, a game using a ball and a bat, millions of people all over the world have sought involvement in it by either playing at some level, or just sitting back and watching a game. With professional baseball attracting more and more fans each season, no one knows what limits this sport can reach. For the time being though, it has been a real "home run."
Like any other sport, baseball developed over an extended period of time spanning way back to the 1600’s. The first evidence of the sport was a game called rounders,
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A man by the name of Alexander Cartwright, a sportsman from New York started the first organized baseball club, the
Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York (30). Along with establishing the first baseball club, he added a set of written rules, which are extremely parallel to the ones of today (30). Some of these rules, stated in 1845, include, the distance between all the bases being ninety feet, and having nine players on each side. No longer would players be plugging runners, but now they would be tagging them with the ball. The rule of forcing a player out at a base was also introduced in 1854. Finally, other rules changed over time such as the length of the game change to nine innings and the distance from the pitchers found to home plate now being sixty feet. Another major landmark in the history of baseball, the invention of the newspaper box score, occurred in 1845 as well. With all these new advances, the game naturally began to spread across the country (32).
Not only did the famous Civil War (1861-1865) spread our nation into the north and south, but on a positive note, it also spread the sport of baseball all over the country. As an example, the union soldiers would play the game as a form of recreation as the rest of the union troops and even confederate prisoners would watch (47). Something similar to a domino effect started as the prisoners and soldiers came home from
The MLB didn’t start until 1876 with the National league and then they brought in the American league in 1901. The first World Series was held in 1903 with the Boston Americans beating the Pittsburg pirates 5-3. Baseball hasn’t always been glorified as it was though. It experienced rough times in the 1940’s when African Americans weren’t allowed to play in the major league but thanks to Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, they eliminated the racial discrimination in baseball and outside the baseball world. Baseball has also experienced rough times during the WWII and Vietnam era. During the time of war, players would go and serve in the military and baseball would have to replace them with less talented players. But Upon return, baseball returned to its once prestige self.
One of the biggest events that really sparked the start of the new interest of baseball was the building of the new New York Yankee stadium. By the outside being painted, light towers being placed in the outfield, a two story concession stand being built, and corporate boxes being put in, the Yankee’s manager, Leland “Larry” MacPhail, was really setting the stage as to what baseball and baseball parks would turn
Over the past few years, Major League Baseball has made numerous changes in an effort to improve on America’s Pastime. From lowering the height of the mound to give hitters a better chance against dominant pitchers, to recently moving the Houston Astros, formerly of the National League Central, to the American League West to create an equal amount of teams in each division and league. Also, before this season, pace-of-play rules were implemented to ultimately speed up the game. All of these changes, of course with the hopes of getting your average sports fan back into baseball.
From the United States to Japan, every athlete who has ever played the game of baseball
Baseball is a great sport because of its amazing history and its easy accessibility. The MLB, Major League Baseball, was founded in 1869. The MLB started off by not allowing African American men play with Caucasian men. The African American men made their own league called the Negro League. Now, in the MLB there are twenty-nine teams placed all around the United States and one in Canada. However, when the MLB was first founded, there were only fifteen teams. The original fifteen team’s names changed and many moved to a different state. Jackie Robinson broke the MLB’s color barrier in 1947. Therefore, Jackie helped start the process of forming one league together instead of two leagues based upon race. The equipment when the MLB started was not safe. For example, the gloves they used to have little to no padding.
The first record of baseball in the United States began in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791. Its popularity spread quickly through the town and the
The soldiers from both the north and south went back to their homes and taught everyone they know how to play. The game exploded in communities all over the country because of this, from this they made team of their best and most competitive players. They were similar to the minor league teams that they use today, and then the colleges adopted the sports and played competitively. Then in 1869, the game became professional and they started paying the best player to play on certain teams. The first team was the Cincinnati, Red Stockings,they won every game the first year.
Rader illustrates how the club organization such as the Knickerbockers showed respect to the game by starting post game ceremonies. He gives an example of how the winning team would receive the game ball with the score stenciled on it to display in their trophy case. The growing crowd of spectators and the overall love of the game helped launch the platform for the formation of the National League in 1876.
The great sport of baseball took a long time to develop into the game it is today. Major League Baseball wasn't always a bunch of sunflower spitting guys hitting four homeruns a game, in fact, in the early stages, very few were hit. Major League Baseball has grown tremendously since the 1800's and it is still growing. Baseball was created in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright, however the first official game wasn't played until 1846. In 1858, the National Association of Baseball Players was created, which was the first official baseball league.
From the first click of the turnstiles to the last crack of the bat, a baseball game is perhaps the most truly American of anything in the United States” (“Project”). This is how baseball started up and began all over and in Chicago.
Have you ever wondered why baseball became such a popular sport or how it began? The reason why baseball came to be started is because it originated before the Civil War as Rounders, a humble game played in sandlots. In rounders, the fielder put the batter out by hitting him with the ball unlike baseball which would have to have the fielder at a base to get an out by catching the ball from a throw. Other researchers say that baseball came to be by the game of stoolball. Stoolball was a game which would have a batter stand in front of a target, a stool, while another player pitched a ball.
The start of the game of baseball is unknown, but some people believe they know when it started. The game of baseball believes to start in England. The start of baseball was around 1760, the game was called Rounder. Rounder had the same rules as baseball today, but it had its difference. The biggest difference was that a fielder had to throw the ball at the runner to get them out. The game changed in 1845. A group of people got together to talk about the game. They wanted to make the game safer. They changed the rules of the fielder. He would not throw at the baserunner anymore; they must tag the baserunner with the ball. The equipment changed as well when they made the rule change. They started to use a harder ball.
Like the bald eagle, baseball has become an icon for the term “American”. It was the nation’s first major sport and quickly was coined America’s pastime. It was created from a combination of other games during the 1840’s and became increasingly popular during the years of the Civil War (Brinkley 392). In their
Baseball originates back to 1800s, from a man named Abner Doubleday, who was a Union Officer during the American Civil War. Some say he invented the game in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. There’s limited amount of information and facts on Doubleday being the original creator of the game. A more accurate response to the question of how baseball originates would be that many scholars believe that baseball was invented way before we can tell. In ancient cultures, such as those of the Persians and Egyptians, there is evidence of games being played with balls and sticks. Games similar to baseball continued to be played by civilizations throughout history but it was not until the early 1600s that Europeans first brought games involving a ball and a stick to the Americas. There were a number of various games played with a ball and a stick but the one that most resembled baseball was an English game called Rounders. The rules of Rounders are a lot simpler than the ones of modern day baseball but it was from
Baseball has evolved from a regional sport in the 1850’s to a national sport today. In this paper I will discuss the expansion of baseball and how the challenges of various time periods relate to the number of teams and their location. There are three main reasons that baseball’s history relates strongly to the geographical theme of location. First, when baseball was an emerging sport in the late 1800’s, most travel was limited to train. If a team was imagined in the west, then it would be a three day train trip to get there just to play a game, and then all the way back. For this reason, all of the original baseball teams were