As I was looking through some of my posts for something else, I realized I never actually got around to writing about my thesis. I wrote about the other things I learned while writing the thesis. I wanted to take today and give you a history lesson about how baseball came to be one of the most popular sports in the United States and how the World Series came to be an annual event.

If you’ve read my thesis already, then you can skip this post if you want. If you want to read my thesis in its entirety, then feel free to go over to the Contact page and get in touch with me! Don’t worry, I won’t give the full twenty pages here, just most of it.

It is debated when baseball actually began. European colonists had so many variations of bat-and-ball games that they brought over with them when they came to settle in the land that would become the United States. They were easy to transport on boats, easy to learn, and easy to play in a country with a lot of land.

It wasn’t until the 1800s, however, that what we know as baseball really began to take shape. The common story is that Abner Doubleday wrote down the rules to baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in the year 1839. An original ball was supposedly even found. However, that story is completely false. During the time that Doubleday was “in Cooperstown,” he was actually over 100 miles away at West Point Academy. The only recorded connection to Doubleday and baseball was when he was a colonel in Texas in 1871 and ordered baseball equipment for his troops. Instead, the date and person I chose to focus on was Alexander Cartwright in 1845. He worked in Manhattan, but as Manhattan was quickly running out of playable space due to industrialization, Cartwright and his team crossed the river to Hoboken, New Jersey. This, to me, is the true birthplace of baseball.

There were twenty initial rules for baseball, and six of those rules dealt with player conduct. Cartwright wanted to make sure the New York game (as it was called) was a “gentleman’s game”. He published his rules in a newspaper as well as a challenge to any team who wanted to play. A team answered the call, and on June 1, 1846, the New York Nine faced off against Cartwright’s Knickerbockers (so named because Cartwright volunteered with the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company). The visiting New York Nine won the match 23-1.

After that first match, no other matches were played until 1854. Printing the rules in the newspaper really helped to spread the popularity of baseball in the New England area. Philadelphia, Boston, and New York were some of the hubs of baseball prior to 1860.

In 1861, the Civil War officially started. States seceded, cannon fired, and battles raged. As men went off to war, a couple of things happened when it came to baseball. The first was that only New York could maintain the same level of commitment to baseball as they had seen before the war. The second was that as men got captured or had time between battles, they taught the game of baseball. Both Union and Confederate troops played baseball, and it spread to all the regions of the country.

Once the Civil War ended, there was a huge cultural shift in baseball. No longer was it the New York game. Instead, the most popular cities for baseball were Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati. In addition, the men who had started baseball were either too old, too injured, or dead to continue playing. It slowly started becoming less of a gentleman’s game as it became more accessible to everyone.

Back in 1857, just before the Civil War began, sixteen teams (including the Knickerbockers) formed the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), the first attempt at organizing players and baseball. One of the biggest things that came out of the NABBP was that no player would ever be paid. After the Civil War ended and the culture of baseball changed, players revolved from team to team with no contract based on who had the best offer. Some of these offers included bribes and minor government positions. There was no team loyalty or sticking to any promise. Things continued to get worse. Finally, in 1869, the NABBP allowed players to be paid. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first publicly paid team, and baseball became a professional sport. The men on the team were well-behaved, and they won more than eighty consecutive games. However, once they lost in June 1870, they continued to lose, morale dropped, and the team was disbanded before the season ended.

In 1871, The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NA for short) was formed. It was the first “professional league.” However, in my opinion, just because they were paid did not make them professional. Boston had all the best players and won the season three times between 1872 and 1875. Nevertheless, players drank excessively, continued to revolve to other teams, and would actually intentionally lose games to win bets. The NA lasted from 1871-1876 and saw twenty-five teams in that time.

On February 2, 1876, Chicago businessman William Hulbert gathered all the major league clubs. He proposed that baseball be run like a business with the owners in control rather than the players. Some teams agreed, and the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (also called the National League or the NL). The National League regulated a lot of aspects of baseball, including player contracts, no drinking allowed, no baseball should be played on Sundays, and really made sure the sport was for middle- and upper-class people. There were eight original teams in the NL, from Boston to St. Louis.

Not everyone liked this idea of running baseball like a business. The American Association (AA) emerged in 1882. It later earned the name “The Beer and Whiskey League” because they could sell alcohol during games. Another league, the Union Association, existed in 1884. The first interleague championship was held in 1882 and called the World’s Series. Colored uniforms also made their first appearance that year.

In 1888-1889, Albert Spalding took the Chicago White Stockings and some other players on an international tour to spread baseball around the world. Some countries really enjoyed the showing of baseball, and other countries were unimpressed. Regardless, baseball had spread far beyond New York to the ends of the earth.

By 1891, all the other leagues had consolidated into the NL or disappeared. In 1892, the Texas League emerged in the south. It was later renamed the Western League, and a man by the name of Ban Johnson became president of the league. Throughout the 80s and 90s, teams changed names, cities, or sometimes returned to old team names. For example, Baltimore had an AA team from 1883-1889. Then they had an NL team from 1892-1899. Both teams were the Baltimore Orioles, and that is still the name of Baltimore’s baseball team today. The 1890s were marked by dirty plays, including spiking cleats to stomp on players, grabbing runners by their belts, and other things. However, it was also one of the first times we saw the scientific side of baseball– signaling, play-calling, and place-hitting.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Ban Johnson had made the Western League incredibly popular. It was so popular, in fact, that he renamed it the American League in 1899. He established teams in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore to challenge the National League; he also made ticket prices cheaper and promised clean baseball.

Tensions rose between the National League and the American League. The National League did not see the American League as equal competition, and the American League felt they had to prove themselves. Finally, after two long, tumultuous years, the National League called for peace. This put the leagues on equal footing and called for mutual respect for both sides. A National Baseball Commission was established with the presidents of both leagues and an additional third member to serve as chairman. They also agreed to play a postseason series with the champions of each league, a best-of-nine World’s Series.

The first World’s Series was between the National League Pittsburgh Pirates and the American League Boston Americans (or Red Sox). They met in October, and it took all nine games, but Boston came out on top.

However, this does not mean that everything worked out. Just the very next season, in 1904, the manager of the New York Giants said that he would not have his team play if they won the National League because he still believed in the inferiority of the American League. Sure enough, the Giants took home the pennant that year, and there was no World Series despite protests.

In 1905, the Giants won again, but this time they agreed to play in the World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics. They cut it down to a best-of-five match. This was the only series where every single game was a shut-out. Philadelphia won Game 2, and New York won all of the rest. Since then, the World Series has been held annually.

There you have it, the history of baseball from the beginning until the first World Series. Obviously there were rule and team changes during this time and even afterwards. Baseball is still changing and growing to this day. As a historian, I believe it is both necessary and exciting to look back.

I hope you learned something, and if you’re interested in more information, don’t hesitate to reach out to me! I’d be happy to send you my research!