The Transition Process in Baseball

According to tradition, baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown. New York, in the summer of 1839. The Baseball Hall of Fame is, in fact, located in Cooperstown. Today, however, historians of baseball doubt the factual basis of the Doubleday tradition. Rather, there is ample evidence that folk games similar to baseball were played in England and the United States long before Doubleday's birth. The term baseball appears in descriptions of pastimes played in England as early as 1744.

A variety of games in which players struck a ball with a stick and advanced to one or more bases were played in New England, New York, and the Middle Atlantic states years before the American Revolution. By the early nineteenth century, numerous folk games similar to modern baseball were played throughout the northeastern United States.

As these games became more and more widespread, a popular sport began to emerge. The first formal baseball club, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York City, was organized in 1845. This club sponsored games among its own members and against teams sponsored by other organizations. By 1855, New York City boasted eleven amateur baseball clubs, with others in nearby New Jersey and Long Island.

Three years later, the National Association of Baseball Players was founded, and it initiated efforts to codify and standardize the rules of baseball. During the 1860s. baseball players and clubs throughout the northeastern United States adopted the "New York" rules promulgated by the National Association. At the same time, baseball began to diffuse to other areas of the United States. During the Civil War, Northern prisoners of war in Confederate prison camps taught the game to their captors, expediting the sport's diffusion in the South.

Shortly thereafter, baseball began to be played professionally. The first professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The management of the Red Stockings recruited top players from many parts of the United States and paid them high salaries to play for the team. The financial and sporting success of the Red Stockings induced other communities to organize professional baseball teams.

In 1876 the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs—the predecessor of the National League of today—was founded. The National League established and enforced the rules of professional baseball. Although some changes in these rules have been instituted since that time, the basic rules of baseball established by the National League are remarkably similar to those followed today by professionals and amateurs alike. The American League was founded as a minor league in the 1880s, and by 1903 it had been accepted as a second major league. Shortly thereafter, the World Series between the two league champions was recognized as the major championship in American professional baseball.