You may have heard that a young man named Abner Doubleday invented the game known as baseball in Cooperstown, New York, during the summer of 1839. Doubleday then went on to become a Civil War hero, while baseball became America’s beloved national pastime.
Not only is that story untrue, it’s not even in the ballpark. Baseball's real origins date back way father, to at least the 18th century.
Who Was Abner Doubleday?
Doubleday, who was born to a prominent family in upstate New York in 1819, was still at West Point in 1839, and he never claimed to have anything to do with baseball. Instead, he served as a Union major general in the American Civil War and later became a lawyer and writer.
In 1907, sixteen years after Doubleday's death, a special commission created by the sporting goods magnate and former major league player A.J. Spalding was set up to determine baseball's origins—namely if it was invented in the United States or derived from games in the United Kingdom. The commission used flimsy evidence—the claims of one man, mining engineer Abner Graves, who said he went to school with Doubleday—to come up with the origin story, which managed to stick.
Cooperstown businessmen and major league officials seized on myth’s enduring power in the 1930s, when they established the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in the village.
What Are Baseball's Real Origins?
As it turns out, the real history of baseball is a little more complicated than the Doubleday legend. References to games resembling baseball in the United States date back to the 18th century. Its most direct ancestors appear to be two English games: rounders (a children’s game brought to New England by the earliest colonists) and cricket.
By the time of the American Revolution, variations of such games were being played on schoolyards and college campuses across the country. They became even more popular in newly industrialized cities where men sought work in the mid-19th century.
In September 1845, a group of New York City men founded the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club. One of them—volunteer firefighter and bank clerk Alexander Joy Cartwright—would codify a new set of rules that would form the basis for modern baseball, calling for a diamond-shaped infield, foul lines and the three-strike rule. He also abolished the dangerous practice of tagging runners by throwing balls at them.
Cartwright’s changes made the burgeoning pastime faster-paced and more challenging while clearly differentiating it from older games like cricket. In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, beginning a new, uniquely American tradition.
READ MORE: Baseball Opening Day Fun Facts
Baseball is often considered the one of the only truly American sports. Unlike basketball, which was also created in the United States, baseball hasn’t found very much popularity outside of the USA, Latin America and Japan.
The first known mention of the sport came in 1791, when the city of Pittsfield, Massachusetts banned the game from being played within 73 meters of the town meeting house. Apparently, there had been several games being played in the town’s square, and that interfered with town business. No one really knows what sport was being played in 1791, though it is unlikely to appear anything like the baseball we know today.
No one really knows who invented baseball in its current form. Often times the credit for the creation of the sport is given to Abner Doubleday, a Civil War hero. However, even he claimed that he knew nothing about the creation of the sport. Despite that, 15 years after his death, he was dubbed “the father” of baseball.
The first official game to be played under modern rules happened on June 19, 1846. It isn’t well documented, but we know that the game was played between the New York Knickerbockers (long defunct, and no relation to the professional basketball team), and perhaps the New York Gotham club (though it is unclear if the Gotham Club was indeed the opponent or not).
Even a decade later, however, the media in New York was devoting more column inches to cricket than baseball. It would take another decade after that for the popularity of baseball to increase to levels where it was covered consistently by the press.
In 1857, the first governmental body was formed to organize the group of clubs that were being created. It was called the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), and was responsible for the standardization of gameplay and rules. It was also created to monitor and sponsor a league-wide championship.
Historians credit the Civil war for boosting the popularity of baseball. By the end of the war more than 100 clubs had joined the NABBP. In 1869, the NABBP allowed for the creation of professional clubs, something that had been against the rules of the league since its creation. This was a major milestone, as previously, all clubs were strictly recreational (at least those belonging to the NABBP). The first professional club was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, it went defunct just two years later. in 1871, the Boston Base Ball club was created, that team later became the Boston Braves, which is a team that Babe Ruth played for in the 20th century.
Nowadays, the game of baseball has transformed into a national phenomenon. It is a multi-billion dollar business, that is watched by millions of Americans every day between the late days of March and the late days of October. The MLB, the successor to the NABBP, is the representative of all professional teams, however the sport itself lives on in small forms in towns and cities all across the country. It is played by children and adults alike, giving credence to the idea that baseball is “America’s Pastime.”
Part of the BASEBALL HISTORY series
The scores resemble those of modern-day football games. The opponents have largely faded into the annals of history. The impact of their efforts, however, continues to be felt today.
New York Knickerbocker Club vs. New York NineJune 19, 1846Elysian Fields
Hoboken, NJ
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Final Score: New York Nine 23, Knickerbockers 1 (4 innings) Umpire: Alexander Cartwright |
Photo courtesy Jeff Richman
Henry Chadwick is the father of "base ball," not baseball.
June 19, 1846: On this day in sports , the New York Mutuals defeated the Knickerbockers 23-1 in 4 innings in the first baseball game ever played in New Jersey's Elysian Fields. The father of the game, Alexander Cartwright, served as referee (a position later renamed as “umpire”). Jim Creighton, baseball’s first superstar, inventor of the curveball and Montgomery Burns’ starting right fielder, was just 5 years old. The first World Series was still 56 years away.
Henry Chadwick, a young cricket reporter from England, chanced upon the game and quickly fell in love with it. Over the years Chadwick developed the system of statistics for analyzing the game, including batting average and ERA. Baseball may be America’s past time, but its father is a Brit.
By 1862, Union Grounds, the first enclosed park with paid admission, opened in Brooklyn and Elysian Fields' days were numbered. The last game at Elysian Fields was recorded in 1873. The National League was only three years away.
For those who still pine for a simpler time when our baseball heroes rode velocipedes to games, waxed their mustaches and baseball gloves with whale oil and used "wagon tongue" baseball bats, the Hoboken Historical Museum will feature a recreation of the game this afternoon in New Jersey. Be sure to wear your finest horsehair opera hat.