Some years ago I was using the database "America's history newspapers", and decided to take a break from my project to see the earliest reference to baseball that I could find. I don't have the reference now, but I recall that it was in an 1820s newspaper, and it reported on a new fad in New York City called baseball. It was readily recognizable as being our game, and not just some very distant ancestor. I have never seen this newspaper article reported in any review of the history of baseball.
Clubs in New Jersey played on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, where they played a version of Rounders with rules adopted from Cricket. Activity would have involved playground rules, only formalized over time, when men played in amateur clubs, and writers began following exploits in professional clubs & leagues.
It's amazing to think that at nearly the same time as Baseball was gaining popularity and spawning the clubs in the USA, at the same time as Association Football (soccer) was doing the same in England. How amazing would it be to be able to travel back in time to when NYC had three top flight professional baseball teams: the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants. Who wouldn't want to venture into Ebbits Field or the Polo Grounds before the wrecking ball demolished them, and the memories of what transpired there.
You must not forget that in the time the British occupied NE USA the game they played was cricket. There were many cricket clubs and even more players. If you look around there arre still some cricket ovals in existance. I'm Aussie and when visiting DC thirty years ago I saw a lunchtime game being played between what appeared to be diplomatic staff on an oval. A USA Cricket Association exists so maybe check their history.
The Oldest Team name Philadelphia Phillies(1890) The Oldest Team Cubs & Braves (1870) Fenway Park(1912) Alexander Joy Cartwright (Knickerbockers Club,1845)
CRICKET: A Brit game that influenced the development of American baseball. CRICKETS: The result of 'Fire Sales' by baseball teams, such as the Oakland A's of 2022.
man that is cool. Excellent work. My “general” historical knowledge was that it developed in the 1870s/1880s. But obviously I was wrong, and I am glad I learned! I sorta kinda wish it was still referred to as “New York Rules” baseball because internationally you have the distinction for Rugby and Australian Rules Rugby or football. lol. It doesn’t really matter, I just think it would be cool. And all those different names for different “ball games” that were played as you researched. That really blows my mind! Again I generally knew it sorta evolved from cricket but had not known there were so many different varieties! Again, very cool, excellent work excellent production!
The reference to Rugby (presuming Rugby Union as opposed to Rugby League) with AFL has little bearing as an analogy to baseball. There is definitely no where near as many variations in the rules in baseball wherever it is played. Americans tend to not have a good overall view of how many nations baseball is played in.
@@flamingfrancis yes, I understand that. But in the video, he specifically delineates the history of how “New York Rules” baseball became the dominant form of baseball and eventually just became referred to as “baseball” as we refer to it today. All I was saying was, I think it would have been funny and cool if the “New York Rules” part of the name had held on through history and through the years, in similarly comparable manner as to how the specific phraseage of “Australian Rules football/rugby” has held on in their sport through the years and over the course of time and history. I was not making any direct comparison of the three games beyond historical, nomeclatural choices of phraseage for the names. No big deal. No problemo. Just a “fantasy” thought that Inhad while watching this excellent video on the history.
There is a story from the War of 1812. American POWs brought to Britain were playing a game with a bat & a ball, when one of the prisoners chased a ball outside the camp boundary he was shot. They were playing an early version of base-ball.
Further Fun Fact.....the first known (REAL) World championship was played under the auspices of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) in 1938. I'll let you all check out the details in Wikipedia to find out who won.
@Paul Kostiak Great story, didn't know that. One small correction, though, Mack was the owner-manager of the Philadelphia Athletics (forebears to todays Oakland Athletics), not the Phillies.
More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
I see you credit John Thorn's Baseball in the Garden of Eden. I totally recommend that book. I also recommend Paul Goldberger's Ballpark: Baseball in the American City.
I read a book about the Louis and Clark expedition some years ago, where along the way they tought some Native Americans a stick and ball game with safe bases, I think they called it Rounders if I recall correctly. That would be early 1800s
When I was in England years ago some people mentioned that our baseball was similar their children’s game rounders. That’s the first time I ever heard of that game. I watched Cricket a number of times but it never made any sense accept the local guys drinking , during breaks , it reminded me of slow pitch softball
Rounders is actually an Irish sport and baseball is directly dirived from the sport, however town ball and beanball which are exactly identical to baseball, the only differences are bean ball you have to literally throw the baseball at the base runner to record an out. Town ball or stickball you can record an out the way we do today or by beaning your opponent. Town ball was also set up to play with any stick you can find to hit the ball. Sort of like baseball in the ghetto. Lol. Baseball is the oldest american sport with the oldest professional league in existence, The American Association (now the American League). There are a lot of facts in this that I never knew I played this game for a living at one point. Really good stuff here man.
The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings moved to Boston where they became the Boston Red Stockings and then the Boston Braves. They still exist today as the Atlanta Braves.
More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
* !!!Before playing this video!!!* ========================= You may need to mute the sound starting at 4:03 - 4:11. Bad audio. Otherwise GREAT info!!!
Its pretty funny to think about a 50-40 game. Its like "Oh we have a commanding lead of 45-40 going into the bottom of the 9th... oh well I guess we'll be powerless to stop five runs from scoring because we don't have gloves, the field is a mass, our team is unathletic, and its basically slow pitch softball."
More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
@@fabio40 Oh I did, but your argument should be with Ken Burns, far be it from me to be called a baseball historian. Have you seen his baseball documentary?
I don't know precisely when it became baseball... but I do know that it became a joke when they started putting a free runner on second base in extra innings.
it came into my recommendeds I believe because the youtube algorithm “sees” that I watch a lot of the channels Jomboy, Baseball Doesn’t Exist, and Pat McAfee, and also nother one simply called, Baseball Sports. Lol, yes, I always try to wonder about how the “algorithm” sends videos into the recommendeds. Even though I am certainly not deciphering it nor am I a programmer, thinking about how it happens makes me think I might almost be deciphering the secrets of the computer algorithm that controls video recommendations. Yes and how silly eh?
To sell you LIES! More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
If you really want to trace the lines of any of these bat and ball sports you need to go back just a bit further....to the Egyptian era. You will find some depictions in the hieroglyphics to stick / ball likenesses. But insofar as the reality of today's game is concerned we didn't have a game until we had rules so that makes it 1854.
@@TheBatugan77 What the hell would I be jealous about? I'm from Jersey, near where the first "New York Game" (the basis of the game that's played today) was played in 1846 at Elysian Fields - just across the Hudson from the "Capitol of Baseball" - Ken Burns. Generations of my family have seen the best teams in baseball play. My Dad caught one of Babe Ruth's home runs, and I was a friend of Yogi Berra when I was a kid. My Dad and I lunched with Whitey Ford at the Diamond Club. What the hell would we care about a perenially mediocre team from Ohio? Ohio? Fuck Ohio.
If you want to talk about the oldest team in baeball? It should be the oldest team in the same city and the same name in the most consecutive years. And that would make the oldest team in Major Leauge Baseball the Philadelphia Phillies. Who has been a team since 1889.
If you want to talk about the oldest continuously running franchise, it would be the Atlanta Braves, who have played every season since 1871 (and have a reason to lay claim as the first professional baseball team as well since quite a few 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings players joined that organization)
I watch videos like this and it saddens me in many ways. (Video was good and informative, by the way.) I look back at what baseball was in the beginning; it was a humble, innocent game filled with amateurs who just loved to play. I look at the nonsensical melodramatic circus that baseball is today with its politics corrupting the sport; players with multi-million dollar contracts, billionaire owners who purposely put out losing teams on the field, overdramatic sports media hyping baseball's off-field stories, cookie cutter ballpark dimensions that are off-putting, and the destruction of independent minor league baseball (MLB Partner Leagues = Scam). Baseball has fallen so hard in recent times. I hope baseball fans understand what I'm trying to say here... We need to start going back to the sport's simpler times.
More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
The old game was actually filled with cursing, gambling and violence, on and off the field. Fights in the stands. Shady characters in the stands and dugouts. Even a few fires started and stands burned to the ground. It was no place for women and children. It wasn't until the early 1900's that team owners began to try and clean things up, because they were losing money at the gate. It culminated in 1919 with the Black Sox scandal which allowed them to enforced gentility.
@@TK0_23_ And your ultimate point? Not disregarding what you said, because even back then you had shady things going on in baseball (and every sport, for that matter). However, don't use what you just said as justification for the nonsense that's unfolding in baseball recently and now. You can't tell me with a straight face that what we have now in baseball is a million times better than what we had in the early 1900s. Politics, money, arrogance, and corruption are all anchoring baseball now. Do you want to spend thousands of dollars just to attend a single MLB game?
@@stevenvitte in the early 1900s a team lost the world series on purpose for gambling money. I think you have very rose tinted glasses on when talking about early baseball.
I'm almost 50 and think the game and the players are absolutely fascinating and fun. The "politics" is completely avoidable, as is the drama. All one has to do is watch the 9 innings of play between two teams. That's it. If you chose to embed yourself in the narratives of (as you admitted - elite and wealthy people) then that's what you'll get out of it. Tune out all that noise "old timer" just enjoy the game!
The fact that Union Troops were allowed to play a game during their imprisonment is pretty neat. Now only if the confederacy had that moral compass towards blacks.
"When did baseball become baseball?" Baseball became baseball when people decided to make it baseball. Uh, I certainly hope that clarifies things a bit.
@@TheManWithNoName93 no you blithering idiot: it’s just one of the first recorded games by that name. the name itself is older than that: it’s at least 260 years old. it’s in multiple newspapers from before that year. given that there’s a strong BRITISH link to Canada then it’s not the same baseball that you believe it to be: it’s a cousin of the sport, like rounders or one of the other mentioned games. but i doubt uou care, you’re too lazy to bother researching
@counselthyself you do know that the tribes WERE NOT SLL IN CANADA, right? the bulk of the originators WERE FROM THE UNITED STATES. Western and Upper New York/Pennsylvania area, not Quebec. so no, i was not wrong. just because the name was French due to the whites not pronouncing the native words DOES NOT MAJW IT CANADIAN
@@piggyroo100 Lol. It's okay man. The game is in okay shape. The people who run the game will always be despised because we all despise authority. But "the game" is fine. Always will be. 👍
I've watched a little bit of Cricket lately and as a baseball fan it really makes no sense at all. No bases? No foul balls? Makes no sense to me at all.
@@brennanroy7842 just bowling the ball to the batsman then the guys running back and forth to score runs until out…the real issue is it lacks the complexity of planning and tactics
Baseball is mention in 1744 John Newbury's Little Pretty Pocket Book and was invented in England possibly before 1700. I has taken the Americans 150 years to turn it into the only commercial sport which is duller than cricket.
@@bostonrailfan2427 Soccer? What is soccer? I fear you may be referring to football. Not American football of course, which appears to be a game designed solely for TV ads and those not fit enough to play rugby. I agree football is dull, so dull in fact that it is the no.1 sport in the world for both men and women.
@@thearcticlord3920 oh lookie, another ignorant Brit who doesn’t know the damn word is their own and who thinks that they’re superior because they use another word.
Baseball players are so scared of the ball they have to wear huge gloves to stop them hurting their hands. Cricket players must have a good laugh at that.
You must have totally forgot to mention that wicket keepers (Catcher) in cricket wear large padded gloves on both hands PLUS inner gloves.. Arguably the most spectacular catches taken are from wicketkeepers who gain a big lateral movement advantage knowing their hands are safer. It is a safety factor in any case and has always been part of baseball. If you think that it makes cricket more superior to baseball you need to start learning. You might also ask yourself why do most of the national players of cricket teams wear basebll gloves when dong their warm ups prior to the commencement of most games these days?
@@flamingfrancis okay yes the wicket keeper wears gloves but look at their proximity. They are for safety. Your catchers are so swaddled in armor you would think they were on a bomb disposal team, so go on compare the two. Baseball gloves are made to make the catching easier and less painful on the hands. Full stop. Stop kidding yourself and do us a favor, use less words, you sound pretentious. Oh and don’t even get me started on all the pads and helmets your “football” players use, that game easily compares to rugby, what is it with American sports is your toughness is only for show?
The other thing I've wondered. Have you ever played catch with someone with a baseball? Typically we'll stand 30 feet apart or so and throw a hardball as hard as we can at each other. And I do mean at each other. You target the shoulder, sometimes it's more at the face though. It's one of the fundamental skills. Throwing and catching like that.
More total horsesh!t to cover up the truth. The freemasons created baseball, thats why there is 3 strikes and 3 outs and 9 innings, in reference to 33rd degree masons! All you have see to KNOW THIS TRUTH is look downn at the field AND SEE THAT IT IS THE SHAPE OF A COMPASS AND SQUARE, the symbol of freemasonry! 90 feet between bases is a nod to 90 degree right angles, achieved by a square.
