Essay on the History of Baseball

Baseball is a sport involving batting and fielding between nine players from two teams. The battling team tries to make runs by hitting the ball which is thrown by the opponent who is referred to as the pitcher holding a bat that is swung by the other team. A run is said to be scored when the player makes advances in the bases and successfully gets back to the home plate (Hogan & Lawrence 24). The history of baseball has grown into a controversial topic drawing lines between Europe and the United States of America. This is in regards to the exact pace where baseball was first played either in disguise or the real baseball. Baseball has developed to be one of the cherished games and internationally played in national and international leagues. It is believed that baseball and other modern games such as cricket, bat, and rounders originated from classic games played in England. However, baseball had other names such as base ball," round ball," goal ball, and "fetch ball" or stool ball. This essay will highlight some of the significant developments in the history of baseball specifically in the United States.

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The development of baseball as a sport from the older version known as bat-and-ball is not easy to trace with accuracy. Baseball is among major sports that are played in America both as a source of income and as leisure. Some historians claim that baseball was first played during the 17th century during the American civil wars. However, the game sport was commonly known as rounders. During the time, the players refurbished it to take a form of cricket whereby they included the rational judgment and skills that were used to make the game widely revered in England. This includes the way the scoring took place and how recording took place. This notes why in modern baseball games, records are highly valued.

Furthermore, baseball grew into a professional game around 1871 where the game was included in league competitions. Before then the game was mostly played as a pastime by amateurs. The first baseball club known as Cincinnati red stockings enrolled professional players into the team at a national level in 1869. The team successfully toured the nations without being beaten until 1871 when the first baseball professional body was formed. The move further heightened the desire by more youth to join the game so that by the 20th century the big cities in the United States had their professional baseball clubs. By this time, the teams were categorized into the American and the National Leagues. On a regular season, the teams in the leagues played against opponents in the same league. In each category, the winners were recognized for having won a pennant. The two winners from each category who won the pennant competed in a Word Series after the regular season. In the World Series, the teams played seven games as, and a team was considered the champion if it won four out of the seven competitions. This organization is still relevant to other versions of the game played in different parts of the world. However, nowadays the league is further subdivided while the pennants are held in a playoff series after the season.

Moreover, the rules and mechanisms in baseball matured around the 1920s. During the time, a baseball hero, Babe Ruth who played with the new York Yankees assisted the team to scoop many titles based on the home runs. Several other great players emerged during this decade with the likes of Jackie Robinson who the first African-American player was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the leagues. This was contrary to the previous years where the African Americans were segregated and could only play in the Negro League. After the 1950s several other states in the United States started playing the game. The western countries began forming teams either by affiliation or by the players virtually moving from the western states to the eastern states so that they play in the teams. However, during the 1970s, the baseball team owners ideally owned the players because of the authoritarian regulations required in enrolling of the players in the teams. However, the phenomenon has changed so that nowadays the players are free to offer their services to the desiring teams on a competitive basis. This has caused a significant disagreement between the owners of the clubs and player unions because most stars are paid massive amounts of money per year making the owners strain their budgets.

In conclusion, several versions explain the origin of baseball in a traditional fashion. Various historical scholars have different opinions concerning the emergence of the game to the nowadays most coveted sport played in the main leagues around the world. Therefore, it is best to acknowledge the fact that the region of interest should be used to assess the history of baseball. This is because there is no harmonized view regarding the origin of the game. However, baseball is a sport that is widely played around the world. Additionally, the game is played both as a recreational sport and as a source of income to many people including players, coaches, medics, psychologists among others.

Work Cited

Hogan, Lawrence D. The Forgotten History of African American Baseball. , 2014. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.