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==History==

==History==

A well-publicized [[tradition]] holds that the game was invented by [[Abner Doubleday]] in [[Cooperstown]], [[New York]] in 1839. But not even the [[National Baseball Hall of Fame]], founded on the strength of that tradition, seriously promotes this theory any more:

In 1905 a commission was created to determine baseball's origins.  Named for a former colonel in the Civil War, the Mill's Commission ultimately centered on the testimony of a mining engineer from Denver, Colorado named Abner Graves, who claimed he was with [[Abner Doubleday]] in Cooperstown, New York in 1839, when Doubleday wrote the rules to the game; his testimony, plus the discovery of several artifacts nearby, helped to establish in the committee's - and public's - mind that the game had originated in Cooperstown<ref>http://www.catskills-house.com/images/baseball_hall_of_fame_A.pdf</ref>. 

:After the [1905] Commission [appointed to determine the game's origins] reported its findings in 1908, many of the game's historians disputed Graves' accounts, noting that many of the innovations he attributed to Doubleday were already being practiced earlier in the 1830s. The discovery in 1999 of the original Mills Commission papers, long reported to have been burned, supports the view of many researchers that Baseball developed from, and along with, other bat-and-ball games earlier in the nineteenth century.<ref name=cooperstown>[http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/about/history.htm The Origins of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum]</ref>  

The word "baseball" is mentioned in passing in [[Jane Austen]]'s 1803 British novel [[Northanger Abbey]], set in England:

This particular story of baseball's origins is completely false, despite the romance of the Doubleday tradition.  He was never involved with baseball at all, and probably never observed a game being played.  In 1839, Doubleday - rather than being at a school in Cooperstown - was a cadet at West Point, and would graduate in 1842; he would see distinguished service during the Civil War.  And even though the report was flawed, the Mill's Commission would discover that baseball had its roots in other bat-and-ball games earlier than in the nineteenth century<ref name=cooperstown>[http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/about/history.htm The Origins of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum]</ref>.

:it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books...<ref>Austen, Jane (1803) ''[Northanger Abbey http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext94/nabby11h.htm]'', Chapter 1</ref>

but there is nothing in the context that tells any details of the game.  

Two games stand out as being the forebears of baseball, and both British in origins.  In the game of [[rounders]], a ball is tossed to a batter wielding a 12-inch bat, who must round and touch several bases in order to score.  As in baseball, rounders is played with nine players on a field, and the game is divided into innings.  Originating in Tudor times and played principally by school-age boys, rounders has the distinction of bearing the first direct reference to the title of ''"base-ball"'' in 1744, from the pages of publisher John Newbery's ''Little Pretty Pocket-Book''<ref>http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume2/june04/pocketbook.cfm</ref>.  

"Base-ball" or "base ball" was being played, under that name, during the [[Civil War]]:

The other, somewhat older game is [[cricket]], a game played on a short field in which the pitcher (called a "bowler" in this game) attempts to dismiss a batter ("batsman"); unlike baseball the game involves the bowler attempting to knock over a set of wooden pegs ("wicket") behind the batsman. Like baseball, cricket play involves runs and outs.

:The air seemed full of heavy shot, and as the flew they could be seen as plainly as a base-ball in one of our games.<ref>Johnson, Robert Underwood and Clarence Clough Buel (1888), ''Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,'' Volume IV, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=0veexS1IQVEWthmLI7jQgT3&id=rSwOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=base-ball+civil+war&as_brr=1 p. 37]</ref>

A 1902 book about [[Philadelphia]] says that "base-ball" was simply a new name for an older game:

In 2004, a baseball historian made national news with the apparent discovery of 1791 bylaw of the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, stating that

:for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House... no Person or Inhabitant of said town, shall be permitted to play at any game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other game or games with balls, within the Distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House.<ref>[http://www.pittsfield-ma.org/subpage.asp?ID=226 Pittsfield is "Baseball's Garden of Eden"]</ref>

The first definitively recorded organized baseball game took place in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846.<ref>[http://www.hobokenbaseball.com/ Hoboken Baseball]</ref>

 

The Abner-Doubleday-in-Cooperstown tradition was a reaction to famous baseball writer Henry Chadwick, who had stated that the game evolved from the British game of "rounders.".<ref name=cooperstown/> In response, Albert G. Spaulding, another baseball pioneer, urged the formation of a commission to determine the game's origin; one was formed, and in due course issued a report on December 30, 1907 stating "the first scheme for playing baseball, according to the best evidence obtainable to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, N.Y. in 1839."

The results of the Spaulding committee led to the 1939 founding of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the city of Cooperstown.<ref>The National Baseball Hall of Fame was inspired by the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York. Established in 1901, with a 600-foot colonnade ultimately containing bronze busts of 98 great Americans, the Hall of Fame was at one time a major landmark, and the additions of honorees to it was a national news event. Ironically, the Hall of Fame for Great Americans has itself passed into obscurity; today, the phrase "Hall of Fame" has practically come to mean the National Baseball Hall of Fame.</ref>

Just how long has baseball been played? The only valid answer known (as of the summer of 2008) indicates that it must have been played before March 31, 1755. In a diary found recently, a lawyer by the name of William Bray wrote as follows: "After Dinner Went to Miss Jeale's to play at Base Ball . . .  ." The next known reference to the sport is the 1791 law in Pittsfield, Mass., forbidding the game to be played. There are also some Egyptian carvings in which a bat and ball may be seen, but these are indecisive.

==Modern Baseball==

==Modern Baseball==