The
origins of Baseball are uncertain. Traces of a game played with
a bat and a ball date back to ancient
Egypt and a ball used over
2000 years ago is on display in the
British Museum in
London.
Games that may recall
Baseball were played in
Walacchia, nowadays a part of Romania, (
Oina: 2 Federations, in
Moldova and
Romania, still play the game in Europe) and
Russia (
Lapta) in the 14
th century. A game played with a bat and a ball was very popular amongst
French Monks in the
1330's. In the same period, a poem by
William Pagula mentioned a game named
Stoolball,
originally
played by milkmaids, who used milking stools as wickets. Germans enjoyed a game named
Schlagball (teams were made by 12 players), that is still played in the
Kiel area, that hosts a couple of tournaments a year.
There is little evidence that
Baseball derives from
Rounders. Actually, a game that is an evolution of Rounders (in which you use
posts and not
bases and can happen that a hitter
runs without
hitting the ball first) was played in
America in the
19th century and was called
Town Ball. In any case, the first reference in history to Rounders (that
is still played in the
British Islands and his sanctioned by the
Gaelic Athletic Association (
www.gaa.ie) together with Gaelic football and Hurling) is from
1744 and appeared in a book for children printed by British publisher
John Newbery and named "A little pretty pocket book". The book also contains a very popular rhyme in which the terms
Baseball and
Rounders are confused.
It seems more likely that
Baseball and
Rounders share the same origin with
Cricket, a game that was imported by Flemish shepherds (
krick in their language means
club or
stick) to England in the
14th century but became an organized sport only in the
17th century.
On the other hand, there is clear evidence that in the
18th century a game called
Baseball was played in
England. In "Northanger Abbey" (a book that was published posthumous in
1818, but was written in the
1790's), British author
Jane Austen describes Catherine Morlan as a woman who
prefers cricket, baseball riding on horseback and running about the country to books. German author
Johann Gutsmuth wrote in
1796 a book on popular pastimes in which he mentions a game called
English Baseball.
This is not enough to conclude that the game we know today as
Baseball is a British game. Actually, there is a game named
British Baseball (
www.britishbaseballassociation.co.uk). It is still played in
Wales and features to teams of
11 players and there is no
pitcher, but a
bowler as in
Cricket . Each teams plays
2 innings and an inning is complete when all 11 players have had a chance at bat. A
run is scored every time a player gets to a
base.
Something must have happened in the late
18th century, when the game got to the
Colonies.
Al Spalding, a former pitcher and a world known sport goods manufacturer, found the perfect story: a man named
Abner Doubleday (an army officer who was an hero during the
Seminoles Wars and was going to be a General in the
American Civil War) invented the game of
Baseball in
1839 in a city called
Cooperstown, the first one of the United States inhabited only by
natives. A story that is way too perfect and that Doubleday himself never claimed.
The invention of
Baseball by Doubleday was probably
invented by Baseball, but there is little doubt that he contributed to the idea of the field (or
diamond) as we know it know. The real inventor of the rules of the game is a book seller from New York:
Alexander Cartwright , who founded a team called
The Knickerbockers in
1839, wrote the rules in
1845 (and the
Congress in
1953 certified he did) and organized the first game in the
United States on
19th of June 1846 in
Hoboken, New Jersey. The game was not the first played in North America, though. The first game of
Baseball played in the
New World dates back to
June 1838 and was played in Ontario,
Canada.
In a matter of years,
Baseball became the first professional sport. In
1850 the National Association of Baseball Players (
NABBP) was born, the
National League was alive and kicking in
1876.
Americans tried immediately to make it a
World Game. In
1878 a professional player named
Esteban Bellan introduced the game in
Cuba (that exported
Baseball in the whole
Caribbean) and in
1870 bats and balls arrived in
Japan (from there quickly reached
Korea and
Taiwan) thanks to
Horace Wilson. Games were organized in
Australia,
New Zealand and
South Pacific in
1888 and
1889. In February
1889 a tour organized by Albert Spalding took the game to
Italy. A championship was played in England in the late
18th century.
The game really became international in the
20th century. By
1903 in the USA the
American League began challenging the National League in the
World Series. Organized
Baseball Leagues started spreading all over the World:
1922 in
The Netherlands,
1934 in
Australia,
1936 in
Japan,
1938 in Puertorico,
1945 in
Venezuela and
Mexico,
1948 in
Italy.
THE HISTORY OF THE IBAF