Celebrate America250: First Base Ball Game

June 19, 1846. On this date, the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club was defeated 23-1 by the New York Ball Club in the first documented baseball game played under the Knickerbocker Rules, the basis of modern baseball rules.

Alexander Cartwright was a banker, stockbroker, bookseller, and volunteer fireman of the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company. In 1842, he organized the establishment of a baseball club based on the fire engine company of which he was a member. To improve the quality of play, the Knickerbockers allowed players to join the team by invitation only and required the payment of dues. In 1845, the club drew up the Knickerbocker Rules for playing the game, with several innovations, including that an inning consisted of three outs; runners could no longer be put out by "soaking" them, i.e., hitting them with the ball; and that foul balls were dead. Base ball, as it was called then, was a popular game in New York, so there were many inter-club and intramural games being played. But no one considered these games important enough to record a batter-by-batter result of the games.*

By 1846, urban development in New York City had forced the Knickerbockers to decamp to the Elysian Fields across the Hudson River in Hoboken, N. J. On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers faced off against the New York Ball Club and lost in a four-inning game 23-1. It is believed that the Knickerbockers lost because most of their best players were absent that day.

The Knickerbockers were a successful club, despite their overwhelming loss in their first recorded game. Their club rules were the basis of the 1857 rules used by the first organized baseball league, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). In 1871, the NABBP was succeeded by the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which was in turn succeeded in 1876 by the still-existing National League. Each successive league continued to improve on the original Knickerbocker Rules and to raise the level of play and professionalism. So we can justifiably look back with pride on the "first" baseball game played on June 19, 1846, as the origin of the modern game.

In 1849, Cartwright left New York to participate in the California Gold Rush, but he quickly left for Hawaii. From 1850 to 1863, he served as fire chief of Honolulu and became an advisor to the monarchs of the Kingdom of Hawaii, where he died in 1892.

Baseball has been such an integral part of American life for nearly two centuries that it would be hard to celebrate America250 without celebrating the origin of baseball.

*Many baseball games had been played and summary results recorded in the newspapers and other sources, but this is the first one where batter-by-batter results have survived.