Every game or sport has evolved from simple origins to complex and competitive structures witnessed today. Even baseball is no different, although there seems to be no clear agreement on the exact origin of the game. This game belongs to the family of bat and ball games like cricket and consists of playing between two teams at a time, each consisting of nine players. Teams alternate in the game, what they call bar or field. During the game, the team that is beating has a player on the base plate who tries to hit the ball thrown by the opposing team’s pitcher. If the player successfully hits the ball, he or she runs counterclockwise on the diamond-shaped area back to the Homeplate before the other team captures it and rejects it back. At the end of the game,
Origin of baseball
Efforts to trace the exact origin of baseball have not given much, however, as the French Theque manuscripts and the empoisonnée bales and other 1344 manuscripts depict illustrations of vicars playing a bat and a ball like baseball. Historians believe that baseball is simply an evolved form of rounders game that was popular in Britain and still very popular among the children of many African countries and evidently the basics of linking the two games. A small pocket book,the British publication of 1774 fairly describes how people played bats and balls in a triangular field with posts in every corner. This description refers strictly to today’s diamond-shaped field and ground bases. The Prince of Wales, according to the records, played such a game in 1749 while British prosecutor William Bray also recorded the same game on Easter Monday in 1755. From this point, historians believe that English immigrants brought the game into North America. The first known mention of Baseball was in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791 and from the 1830s, North America began recording several versions of baseball.
Commission of inquiry into the origin of baseball
In 1903, Henry Chadwick published an article that delved into the origin of baseball and explained that the game was born from Britain’s rounders game. After reading this, and believing that the game was an American invention, Albert Spalding convinced Chadwick that they would have to set up a commission of inquiry to unravel the truth. They commissioned Abraham Mills to direct the commission he worked for three years and concluded with a conclusion that Abner Doubleday invented baseball and consecrated him as the father of baseball. Doubleday was a hero of the civil war and, at the time of this discovery, had died fifteen years before.
The Abner Doubleday Theory
The inquiry commission’s finding that Doubleday had invented baseball during the summer of 1838 in Cooperstown, New York, lasted a few years before people questioned the credibility of the theory. Further research leading to the opposition of the theory indicated that in 1839, Doubleday was indeed at West Point. Furthermore, Doubleday did not act or pretend to know baseball or the rules of the game and therefore, according to the 1930s, this theory died of natural death.
Contribution to the baseball of Alexander Cartwright
One of the first baseball clubs, the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club, and its founder, Alexander Joy Cartwright, formulated most of the baseball rules in 1845. Cartwright and his team saw the need to develop the sport and eliminate seemingly insecure elements of the game. These rules brought order to the game, introduced the rule of three shots and the diamond-shaped infield, so many people called Cartwright as the real father of baseball.
Where exactly did Baseball come from?
Baseball is a very popular North American game, although, when it comes to the origin, American and British sports historians disagree. People tend to cherish the heritage associated with an invention and, as in this case, this seems to be the only obstacle in finding the true origin of baseball. While the two sides do not dispute the fact that baseball has evolved from other bat and ball games, the world may never know where the game originated because both sides of the topic are supportive. Perhaps in the United States there was a stick and a ball that evolved into baseball or perhaps the true origin of the game are the rounders of Great Britain
