THE DIAMOND, THE TEAM, AND THE SET OF RULES
The Diamond
If the exact date is ever discovered, many who love the game of baseball believe that it should be celebrated as a national holiday. As baseball legend has it, on one spring or summer day—probably in 1845, although some sentiment places it earlier—a young man named Alexander Cartwright went to a meadow in Manhattan and laid out a diamond-shaped area with bases 90 feet apart.
If fans of the game wished to commemorate the site, many historians would say the plague should be set near the corner of Twenty-Seventh Street and Fourth Avenue. Other researchers identify the tract as “a meadow on the slope of Murray Hill near Fourth Avenue.” It seems clear that both descriptions refer to the same general location.
Unfortunately, no sketch of the diamond or copies of the rules (if any were written down) have survived from Cartwright’s time in the Manhattan site, which he and a group of friends had been using since about 1842 to play a version of a bat-and-ball game.
Things became a little clearer when Cartwright and his group had to find another place to play. In 1845, they moved across the Hudson River and began playing at a “picturesque and delightful” location in Hoboken, New Jersey. There, at what many would argue was the first true baseball field, the group rented a section of ground at a site called Elysian Fields, a term that has come down through baseball history conjuring up visions of a wondrous game played in idyllic settings.
The Team
Possibly to help pay rental fees for use of the Elysian Fields grounds, Cartwright formed the Knickerbocker Ball Club. The name “Knickerbocker” came from the fire station in which Cartwright worked when he and his friends began playing ball on the Manhattan meadow. At the Elysian Fields on June 19,1846, the Knickerbockers played a well-documented first game against an outside team.
Some have noted that the Knickerbockers were probably not the nation’s first baseball club, indeed, there are occasional references to earlier contests between teams playing variants of bat-and-ball games. However, unlike the Knickerbockers Ball Club, which existed as an organization for several years, other teams were short-lived and soon dropped from view.
The Rules
At about the same time that Alexander Cartwright formed the Knickerbocker Ball Club, he set down rules for the game. The year most often cited is 1845, but there remains some dispute. The 20 written rules issued by Cartwright were the first to codify instructions for the sport that has evolved into the present-day game.
Variations of bat-and-ball games were being played long before Cartwright put his rules on paper or went to the meadows in Manhattan, and other popular versions existed during his time. Cartwright, though, was the first to prescribe distance and guidelines for what was initially called “base ball.” Over the years, “base ball” morphed into ‘baseball” as the game became ingrained in the nation’s fabric.
While the sport defined by Cartwright’s rules differed in some aspects from its modern-day counterpart, present-day fans would recognize major components of today’s game in them: the field was diamond shaped, three missed swings retired a batter; outs were also made by catching a ball in the air, throwing to first base to beat a runner, or tagging a base runner, and three outs constituted a team’s at bat during an inning.
How the most magical part of Cartwright’s game came about remains a mystery. Ninety feet between bases turned out to be just right. Had the dimensions been set even a bit longer, almost every ground ball would result in an out. Any closer and most batters would be safe. Ninety feet is just right.
As baseball legend goes, when Cartwright went to the meadow, he carried a chart with him. The dimensions of the ball diamond he sketched that June day may have been determined simply by the size of the distance was right. No one knows.
However, it came about, as the great baseball writer Red Smith noted, “The world’s fastest runner cannot run to first base ahead of a sharply hit ball that is cleanly handled by the infielder…..Let the fielder juggle the ball for one moment or delay his throw an instant and the runner will be safe. Ninety feet demands perfection….That single dimension makes baseball a fine art---and nobody knows for sure how it came to be.”
If the exact date is ever discovered, many who love the game of baseball believe that it should be celebrated as a national holiday. As baseball legend has it, on one spring or summer day—probably in 1845, although some sentiment places it earlier—a young man named Alexander Cartwright went to a meadow in Manhattan and laid out a diamond-shaped area with bases 90 feet apart.
If fans of the game wished to commemorate the site, many historians would say the plague should be set near the corner of Twenty-Seventh Street and Fourth Avenue. Other researchers identify the tract as “a meadow on the slope of Murray Hill near Fourth Avenue.” It seems clear that both descriptions refer to the same general location.
Unfortunately, no sketch of the diamond or copies of the rules (if any were written down) have survived from Cartwright’s time in the Manhattan site, which he and a group of friends had been using since about 1842 to play a version of a bat-and-ball game.
Things became a little clearer when Cartwright and his group had to find another place to play. In 1845, they moved across the Hudson River and began playing at a “picturesque and delightful” location in Hoboken, New Jersey. There, at what many would argue was the first true baseball field, the group rented a section of ground at a site called Elysian Fields, a term that has come down through baseball history conjuring up visions of a wondrous game played in idyllic settings.
The Team
Possibly to help pay rental fees for use of the Elysian Fields grounds, Cartwright formed the Knickerbocker Ball Club. The name “Knickerbocker” came from the fire station in which Cartwright worked when he and his friends began playing ball on the Manhattan meadow. At the Elysian Fields on June 19,1846, the Knickerbockers played a well-documented first game against an outside team.
Some have noted that the Knickerbockers were probably not the nation’s first baseball club, indeed, there are occasional references to earlier contests between teams playing variants of bat-and-ball games. However, unlike the Knickerbockers Ball Club, which existed as an organization for several years, other teams were short-lived and soon dropped from view.
The Rules
At about the same time that Alexander Cartwright formed the Knickerbocker Ball Club, he set down rules for the game. The year most often cited is 1845, but there remains some dispute. The 20 written rules issued by Cartwright were the first to codify instructions for the sport that has evolved into the present-day game.
Variations of bat-and-ball games were being played long before Cartwright put his rules on paper or went to the meadows in Manhattan, and other popular versions existed during his time. Cartwright, though, was the first to prescribe distance and guidelines for what was initially called “base ball.” Over the years, “base ball” morphed into ‘baseball” as the game became ingrained in the nation’s fabric.
While the sport defined by Cartwright’s rules differed in some aspects from its modern-day counterpart, present-day fans would recognize major components of today’s game in them: the field was diamond shaped, three missed swings retired a batter; outs were also made by catching a ball in the air, throwing to first base to beat a runner, or tagging a base runner, and three outs constituted a team’s at bat during an inning.
How the most magical part of Cartwright’s game came about remains a mystery. Ninety feet between bases turned out to be just right. Had the dimensions been set even a bit longer, almost every ground ball would result in an out. Any closer and most batters would be safe. Ninety feet is just right.
As baseball legend goes, when Cartwright went to the meadow, he carried a chart with him. The dimensions of the ball diamond he sketched that June day may have been determined simply by the size of the distance was right. No one knows.
However, it came about, as the great baseball writer Red Smith noted, “The world’s fastest runner cannot run to first base ahead of a sharply hit ball that is cleanly handled by the infielder…..Let the fielder juggle the ball for one moment or delay his throw an instant and the runner will be safe. Ninety feet demands perfection….That single dimension makes baseball a fine art---and nobody knows for sure how it came to be.”