10 Things You Might Not Know About Early Baseball

From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game (MLB.com) on September 13, 2011:

1. When was baseball first played in America? 

 A game by that name was documented in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1791 but was probably played in that state way earlier. A game called baste or baste ball, which was probably just a regional variant spelling, was played at Princeton College in 1786. 

2. Who invented baseball?

Neither Abner Doubleday nor Alexander Cartwright … not any one individual, certainly. But three other men had more to do with baseball’s rise than those two: William Rufus Wheaton, Daniel Lucius Adams, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth.

Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2011/09/13/ten-things-you-might-not-know/



Originally published: September 13, 2011. Last Updated: September 13, 2011.