Spread of baseball project
From SABR Encyclopedia
PLEASE NOTE: To input new entries for the Spread of Baseball Project, please visit Protoball.
| SABR Origins Committee project on the |
Spread of baseball |
|---|
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| Key pages |
| Project home page Project map History of early baseball Research needs in the spread of baseball |
| Lists |
| Earliest games by state Earliest clubs by state All games · All clubs Predecessor games Other firsts in baseball |
| Help |
| Researching early baseball Submitting research online |
A history of the early playing of baseball and the locations and people involved. This is a project of Origins Committee.
You can view the information already assembled by scrolling down on this page and navigating by region, or by viewing one of the lists in the sidebar at the right.
If you are interested in contributing your own research on early baseball, visit Protoball.
The Project
Modern baseball is first seen in the Knickerbocker Rules, which were written in 1845 in New York City. By the late 1860s, “baseball fever” had carried the “New York game” far and wide in North America, and the worldwide spread began. We hope that a community effort to dig up facts on its arrival in many local areas will allow us to see how (and eventually, why) baseball reached some areas early and others only later on. In each locality, we hope to learn:
- When the first game occurred that used modern rules
- When the first local baseball club formed
- What game or games preceded modern baseball
Even in the mid-1850s, US newspapers were reporting much more cricket and horse-racing than baseball. That all changed, and dramatically. We’re asking when, how, and why, baseball so suddenly ensconced itself as America’s national pastime.
Where early baseball was played
The number next to each region indicates how many records the project currently has in that region. The project currently contains a total of 1851 records of early baseball and predecessor games.
