The term baseball can be dated to 1744, in John Newbery’s children’s book: A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. The book has a brief poem and a picture explaining a game called baseball. A fun fact: the bases in the picture book are marked by wooden posts instead of bags and flat home plates like those used in baseball today. The book was very popular in England and went on to be mass-produced and reprinted all across North America.

Early History 

According to the baseball celebrity, Alexander J. Cartwright, an amateur player in New York City organized the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club in 1845, which made a set of rules for baseball. Many of these rookie-made rules are still being used today.  A significant change made in their set of rules is that a runner could not be benched by being hit with a thrown ball, he can only get out by being tagged with it.  This change allowed for harder balls to be used during games, and by consequence, allowed for more sensational hits to be made. 

Something many Baseball lovers may not even know is that President Franklin D. Roosevelt saved Baseball from being shut down because of the war.  He felt that baseball was too important for the country’s morale to be abandoned due to the ongoing conflict. Baseball was a way for worried Americans to release some stress amidst growing tensions following Pearl Harbor, baseball teams coined themselves, “the national nerve tonic.”