Baseball in American history occupies a coveted place in our national identity. Like apple pie and the image of our flag, baseball is iconic to our nation and is intertwined with its history. As we have evolved as a nation so too has the sport of baseball. For one thing, American baseball history stretches back almost as far, if not further, than the history of our nation.
As a company that makes quality baseball scoreboards and our newest !
The sport of baseball was first played in the 18th century, most likely prior to the formal founding of the United States. There are written references in America to baseball as early as 1792 so it was certainly being played in advance of this date. A curveball, so to speak, has been recently been thrown into the history of baseball as a diary reference to baseball back in 1755 in England was discovered. The absolute origin of the sport may be debated but the impact on of baseball in American history cannot be argued.
The sport, as is well known, was first organized into a formal team game by Alexander Cartwright in 1845 when he formed the New York Knickerbockers. The first game was played in New Jersey soon after and things moved quickly after that. By 1858, there was a loose organization and the first All Star game was played in Queens. By 1876, the National League was formed formally in the structure that still exists today. It was a forerunner to modern unions in American society at large that would shortly come with the industrialization of the big cities. American league baseball history is 25 years shorter as they had to wait until 1901 for their “junior circuit” to join the major, senior league.
Baseball was also a microcosm of the larger social struggles in American. The racial separation that endured after the Civil War stretched into baseball. To combat this, the New Star Colored League of Baseball was founded in 1876 in Texas. This all African-American league, the Negro League as it was then known, blossomed into a concurrent league with a presence in almost every major city. It was not until the great Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 that the segregation in baseball via the so-called “Gentleman’s Agreement” was finally finished. This predated broader American society’s monumental struggle with civil right by at least a decade.
American baseball history is, of course, ongoing. As our nation has evolved, so too has the sport for both better and worse. The era of huge money and financing found its way into baseball in the 1980s and has not left since. Contracts for players have grown to gargantuan proportions and baseball clubs are now typically owned by huge public corporations that have nothing to do with sport. With more money on the line, the pressure to perform under any conditions has upped the physical requirements for players and there has been an increasing use of steroids in the last decade. Similarly, American business has increasingly found itself amped up on credit in order to perform for its very demanding public shareholders.