Aaron's Baseball Highlights
It is rumoured that Abner Doubleday invented baseball. According to the legend, Doubleday devised the game of "baseball" while a student in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. He laid out the diamond shape of the field and gave position names to the nine players on it. Over the years, researchers have concluded that the Doubleday-Cooperstown story is completely false.
The truth is that the game had developed slowly over the course of the 1800s, evolving from the English games of rounders and town ball. The nine-inning game was only established in 1857. Before that time the first team to score 21 runs won.
The first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, began to play in 1869. They traveled the country that year, playing before thousands of fans and winning 60 games without a loss. Soon baseball's promoters began forming professional baseball clubs in cities across the Northeastern and Midwestern United States. By 1870 professional players outnumbered amateurs in the NABBP and the remaining amateurs withdrew. In 1871 the organization became the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players.
The new National Association represented players from ten clubs. In effect, these clubs made up the first professional baseball league. They introduced the practice of league competition and concluded their regular season with a pennant race and championship. However, the National Association suffered from poor management and by 1876 it had folded completely.
