"evolved into today's rules of baseball. One century later, the Knickerbockers name itself was adopted by the New York Knickerbockers National Basketball Association team, although it is more commonly known by its shortened form, the Knicks. New York Knickerbockers The New York Knickerbockers were one of the first organized baseball teams which played under a set of rules similar to the game today. In 1845, the team was founded by Alexander Cartwright, considered one of the original developers of modern baseball. In 1851, the New York Knickerbockers wore the first ever recorded baseball uniforms. While a member of Knickerbocker Engine"
"Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 has been conclusively debunked by sports historians. In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, produced a code of baseball rules now called the Knickerbocker Rules. The practice, common to bat-and-ball games of the day, of ""soaking"" or ""plugging""—effecting a putout by hitting a runner with a thrown ball—was barred. The rules thus facilitated the use of a smaller, harder ball than had been common. Several other rules also brought the Knickerbockers' game close to the modern one, though a ball caught on the first bounce was, again, an out and"
"description in English of a bat and ball base-running game played on a diamond. The following year, the book was published in Boston, Massachusetts. Similar rules were published in Boston in ""The Book of Sports"", written by Robin Carver in 1834, except Carver called the game ""'Base' or 'Goal ball'"". Charting the evolution of the game that became modern baseball is difficult before 1845. The Knickerbocker Rules describe a game that they had been playing for some time. But how long is uncertain and so is how that game had developed. Shane Foster was the first to come up with"
"1831 ""Knickerbocker"" had become a local byword for an imagined old Dutch-descended New York aristocracy, their old-fashioned ways, their long-stemmed pipes, and knee-breeches long after the fashion had turned to slacks. (Such cultural heritage sprang almost entirely from Irving's imagination and became a well-known example of an invented tradition.) ""Knickerbocker"" became a byword for a New York patrician, comparable to a ""Boston Brahmin"". Thus the ""New York Knickerbockers"" were an amateur social and athletic club organized by Alexander Cartwright on Manhattan's (Lower) East Side in 1842, largely to play ""base ball"" according to written rules, the first organized team in"
"the codification of the so-called Knickerbocker Rules. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the ""New York Nine"" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century. In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area, and by 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the ""national pastime"" or"
"of a set of documents titled ""Laws of Base Ball"" written in 1857 by New York Knickerbockers president Daniel ""Doc"" Adams after a discussion with executives of 14 other New York-area clubs. The documents established the rules of the game, including nine innings, nine players on the field and 90-foot basepaths. Cartwright was not a participant at the 1857 meeting, as he was living in Hawaii. Alexander Cartwright Alexander ""Alick"" Joy Cartwright Jr. (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892) was a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club in the 1840s. Although he was an inductee"
"of the person of Doubleday and the village of Cooperstown, the Mills report was not entirely incorrect in its broad outline: a game related to English rounders was played in America from early times; it was supplanted by a variant form which originated in New York circa 1840. But this development happened in urban New York City, not pastoral Cooperstown, and the men involved were neither farm boys nor West Point cadets. The earliest known published rules of baseball in the United States were written in 1845 for a New York City ""base ball"" club called the Knickerbockers. The purported"
"law and of proto-baseball, Stevens discussed the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, the first team using codified baseball rules, in 1845. For the club's members, the ""rules which governed their contests clearly indicate that the game was to be played by gentlemen. Winning was not the objective; exercise was."" As winning, however, came to be valued over exercise when the game spread beyond its gentlemanly origins, ""written rules had to be made more and more specific in order to preserve the spirit of the game."" Pointing out examples of dubious play from professional baseball in the 1890s that led to the"
"as to declare that the Knickerbocker Club comprised English expatriates who introduced ""their"" game to America for the first time in 1845. The Mills Commission, at the other extreme, created an ""official"" and entirely fictional All-American version attributing the game's invention to Abner Doubleday in 1839 at Cooperstown, New York (current site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum). Both were entirely wrong, since this much is clear: baseball, or a game called ""base ball"", had been played in America for many years by then. The earliest explicit reference to the game in America is from March 1786"
"only underhand pitching was allowed. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the ""New York Nine"" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century. In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area. By 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the ""national pastime"" or ""national game."" A"
"but changed ""Rounders"" to ""Base or Goal ball"" because, as the preface states, those ""are the names generally adopted in this country"" – which also implies that the game was ""generally"" known and played. In 1833 the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia was organized, and by 1837 the Gotham Base Ball Club would be formed in Manhattan, which would later split to form the Knickerbocker Club. 1835 saw the publication of ""Boy's Book of Sports"" which, confusingly, has chapters for both ""Base ball"" and ""Base, or Goal-ball"", which seem to be little if at all different; both were ""all out,"
"of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in 1845. He served on the Committee of By-Laws with William H. Tucker and helped draft the game's first formal set of rules, which were adopted in September 1845. Wheaton also served as one of the sport's first umpires. In 1887, Wheaton gave an interview to ""The San Francisco Daily Examiner"", describing the early days of baseball in New York. He recalled that: We played no exhibition or match games, but often our families would come over and look on with much enjoyment. Then we used to have dinner in the middle of the"
"resulted from the earlier practice. A recently discovered newspaper interview with Wheaton indicates that the rules he and Tucker wrote for the Knickerbockers in most respects duplicated the rules he had written for the Gotham Club in 1837; the Knickerbockers were founded as a breakaway group of former Gothams. Writing the rules did not help the Knickerbockers in the first known competitive game between two clubs under the new rules, played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 19, 1846. The ""New York nine"" (almost certainly the parent Gotham Club) humbled the Knickerbockers by a score of 23"
"on the site of a Dutch cattle market and parade ground, becoming the city's oldest public park to survive to modern times. A painting from around 1810 shows British bowlers playing a bowling sport outdoors. It shows a triangular formation of ten pins chronologically before it appeared in the United States. In 1819, New York writer Washington Irving made the first mention of ninepin bowling in American literature in his story ""Rip Van Winkle. On 1 January 1840, Knickerbocker Alleys in New York City opened, becoming the first indoor bowling alley. In 1841, the state of Connecticut banned nine-pin bowling"
"The Massachusetts Game The Massachusetts Game was a type of amateur club baseball popular in 19th century New England. It was an organized and codified version of local games called ""base"" or ""round ball"", and related to town ball and rounders. The Massachusetts Game is remembered as a rival of the New York Game of baseball, which was based on Knickerbocker Rules. In the end, however, it was the New York style of play which was adopted as the ""National Game"" and was the fore-runner of modern baseball. The form of the Massachusetts Game that is best known today comes"
"showed that the gospel that supplanted it was also deeply flawed. In this accounting, baseball was understood as the derivation of an English children's game, rounders, but America was allowed to retain patrimony over its national pastime through the assertion that it had been reinvented as a modern sport by the members of the New York Knickerbockers, who codified its rules for the first time in 1845. This idea, according to Block is wrong in almost every aspect. In the book, Block argues that baseball was not a product of rounders, and its essential form had already been established by"
"Club and New York Nine at Elysian Fields. In 1845, the Knickerbocker Club, which had been founded by Alexander Cartwright, began using Elysian Fields to play baseball due to the lack of suitable grounds on Manhattan. Team members included players of the St George's Cricket Club, the brothers Harry and George Wright, and Henry Chadwick, the English-born journalist who coined the term ""America's Pastime"". By the 1850s, several Manhattan-based members of the National Association of Base Ball Players were using the grounds as their home field while St. George's continued to organize international matches between Canada, England and the United"
"would govern play among the three leading clubs, the Knickerbockers, the Gotham Club, and the Eagle Club. Among other things, the 1854 rules included specifications for the size and weight of the ball, set the dimensions of the infield, and adopted the ""force out rule"" of tagging first base to put a batter out on a ground ball. In 1856, Curry became involved in a debate among the Knickerbockers as to whether to allow nonmembers to participate in games if fewer than 18 men were available to play. Curry, as the leader of the group that historian John Thorn has"
"era in the history of the game, for it was the first recorded movement of that kind. The right and title to the distinction of being the first organized Base Ball club in the world belongs to the old Knickerbocker Club. That honor has never been called in question. For more than thirty years the Knickerbocker Club maintained an amateur organization, and as such was regarded as a model in every respect."" Curry also served on the committee that drafted the Knickerbocker Rules, reputed to be the first set of official written rules for the game of baseball. Differing accounts"
"players. According to Wheaton, ""The new game quickly became very popular with New Yorkers, and the numbers of the club soon swelled beyond the fastidious notions of some of us, and we decided to withdraw and found a new organization, which we called the Knickerbocker."" Membership in the Knickerbockers was by invitation and required the payment of dues; those Gothams or ""New Yorks"" who were excluded continued to play among themselves. What was long considered the first ""officially recorded"" baseball game was played on June 19, 1846 at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The ""Knickerbockers"" and the ""New"
"baseball history; on June 19, 1846 the New York Knickerbockers played the first game of ""base ball"" organized under those rules, in Hoboken, New Jersey, and were trounced 23 - 1. The Knickerbocker name stayed with the team even after it moved its base of operations to Elysian Fields at Hoboken, N.J. in 1846. The baseball link may have prompted Casey Stengel to joyously exclaim, ""It's great to be back as the manager of the Knickerbockers!"" when he was named pilot of the newborn New York Mets in 1961. Hence also the locally-brewed ""Knickerbocker Beer"" brewed by Jacob Ruppert, the"
"report of the National Association of Base Ball Players declared that ""The game of base-ball has long been a favorite and popular recreation in this country, but it is only within the last fifteen years that any attempt has been made to systematize and regulate the game."" The older game was recognized as being very different in character from the new ""Knickerbocker"" style. The New York ""Clipper"" of October 10, 1857, reported on a match between the Liberty Club of New Jersey and ""a party of Old Fogies who were in the habit of playing the old fashioned base ball,"
"suburban shopping centers and urbanized areas. In 1840, the first indoor bowling alley opened—Knickerbocker Alleys in New York City. Instead of wood, this indoor alley used clay for the bowling lane. By 1850, there were more than 400 bowling alleys in New York City, which earned it the title ""bowling capital of North America"". Because early versions of bowling were difficult and there were concerns about gambling, the sport faltered. Several cities in the United States regulated bowling due to its association with gambling. In the late 19th century, bowling was revived in many U.S. cities. Alleys were often located"
"doubt on the originality of these rules, as information has come to light about the New York clubs that predated the Knickerbockers, in particular the rules devised by William R. Wheaton for the Gotham Club in 1837. Baseball historian Jeffrey Kittel has concluded that none of the Knickerbocker Rules of 1845 was original, with the possible exception of three-out innings. As MLB's Official Historian John Thorn wrote, Cartwright has ""a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame on which every word of substance is false. Alex Cartwright did not set the base paths at ninety feet, the sides at nine"
"He authored the initial draft of the regulations with what ""The New York Times""' Richard Sandomir called ""an upright script and strong hand."" The ""Laws"" included regulations governing bat and ball sizes, and a ban on betting by players and umpires. Fellow Knickerbocker William H. Grenelle copied Adams' work onto blue pages, and modifications and notations were made as the convention progressed. Among other changes, part of the rule Adams had written on game length was crossed out; the number nine was replaced with seven, before the motion that settled the issue was introduced. In March, the Knickerbockers changed their"
"the Eagle Club published their rules, and two years later the Knickerbockers, Eagles and Gothams met and agreed to a uniform set of rules to govern all three clubs, at least in match play, which for the first time set the pitching distance (45 feet). A preliminary meeting in 1855 between seven other clubs, five from New York and one each from Brooklyn and New Jersey, represented the first effort to form an organized league, although it came to nothing. However, in 1857 sixteen clubs from New York and environs sent delegates to a convention that standardized the rules, essentially"
"usually considered impractical and disregarded. Starting with the Knickerbocker Rules in 1845, and the National League Rules in 1877, the rules of baseball have evolved over time. The 2014 edition of the rulebook fills about 250 pages. After the 2014 season, the Playing Rules Committee reorganized and recodified the rules. However, through the 2017 edition, the rulebook also contains a listing in the 2014 format. The 2017 edition occupies 163 and 99 pages in the current and 2014 formats, respectively. Changes to the rules are decided by a committee. Although new rules are added, some rules which are obsolete have"
"following two years. The number of baseball teams in the New York City area started to grow during the early 1850s, as the Washington Base Ball Club (also known as the Gotham Ball Club) and Eagle Base Ball Club were founded or reorganized. The Eagle Base Ball Club, desiring a unified set of rules, sent a message to the Knickerbockers requesting that a committee be formed. Adams was one of the three Knickerbockers members selected to be on the committee, and the clubs agreed on a set of rules, which were presented at the Knickerbockers' meeting on April 1, 1854."
"Alexander Cartwright Alexander ""Alick"" Joy Cartwright Jr. (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892) was a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club in the 1840s. Although he was an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame and he was sometimes referred to as a ""father of baseball,"" the importance of his role in the development of the game has been disputed. The rules of the modern game were long considered to have been based on the Knickerbocker Rules developed in 1845 by Cartwright and a committee from the Knickerbockers. However, later research called this scenario into"
"men, or the game at nine innings."" The first clearly documented match between two baseball clubs under these rules took place on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. In this match, the Knickerbockers lost to the ""New York nine"" (probably the parent Gotham Club) by a score of 23 to 1. Some authors have also questioned the supposed ""first game"" under the new rules. The Knickerbockers' scorebook shows intra-club games during 1845; the New York Base Ball Club played at least three games against a Brooklyn club in 1845 also, but the rules used are unknown."
"as a member of the game's various rules committees for more than a decade and through at least 1856. An 1848 pamphlet published by the Knickerbockers identifies Curry, Alexander Cartwright, Doc Adams, Eugene Plunkett, and J. P. Mumford as the members of the committee ""to revise constitution and By-Laws."" In November 1853, Curry was assigned to a rules committee that included Doc Adams, William H. Tucker, and members of another New York baseball club, the Eagle Club. The committee met on April 1, 1854 at Smith's on Howard Street in New York. The committee adopted a set of rules that"
"Knickerbocker Club The Knickerbocker Club (known informally as The Knick), is a gentlemen's club in New York City founded in 1871. The name ""Knickerbocker"", mainly thanks to writer Washington Irving, was a byword for a New York patrician, comparable to a ""Boston Brahmin."" The Knick's current clubhouse, a Neo-Georgian structure at 2 East 62nd Street, was commissioned in 1913 and completed in 1915, on the site of the mansion of Josephine Schmid, a wealthy widow. It was designed by William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich, and has been designated a city landmark. The Knick was founded in 1871 by"
"with clubs around the world, such as the Cercle Royal du Parc in Brussels, in Rome, Australian Club, Brooks's Club and the Turf Club in London, the Jockey-Club de Paris and the Nouveau Cercle de l'Union, the Melbourne Club, the Kildare Street & University Club, and the Círculo de Armas de Buenos Aires. Knickerbocker Club The Knickerbocker Club (known informally as The Knick), is a gentlemen's club in New York City founded in 1871. The name ""Knickerbocker"", mainly thanks to writer Washington Irving, was a byword for a New York patrician, comparable to a ""Boston Brahmin."" The Knick's current clubhouse,"