9/19-21 Early Baseball

Unit 1 Journal #2--Ty Cobb Early Baseball History--Burns Inning 1 The Knickerbocker Baseball Club (1845) One spring day in 1845, New York bank teller Alexander Cartwright suggested to his ballplaying companions that they organize formally into a club. From that humble start grew America's national game. Versions of baseball had been played long before; varieties of the children's game known in England as "rounders" and in America as "base ball" or "town ball" were popular throughout the northeastern states. But when the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club organized that September, Cartwright and his friends transformed the children's game into an adult sport, chiefly by three innovations still in effect today. 1. 90 ft. bases 2. 9 on a side w/ a fair and foul line. 3. No "SOAKING" (throwing the ball at the runner to get them out) 1869 Cincinatti Red Stockings 1st Professional Baseball Team. 1876 The Formation of the National League *Monopoly---Reserve Clause *Middle Class Pursuit 1. Games were $.50 2. No Alcohol Sold at the Games 3. No Games were played on Sunday