How did baseball originate?
By: Molly Cleveland
Where did baseball originate?
The origins of baseball are rooted in a British game called "rounders." Rounders was a game played in castle yards and town squares throughout Great Britain. In the game of rounders, stakes were driven into the ground at 15 pace intervals, used similarly to bases in today's baseball game. A ball was pitched repeatedly to the striker until it is hit with a flat-sided stick.
How did baseball start?
Baseball's precise origin is unknown, but several sports involving bats and balls are thought to have influenced its creation. Most historians consider rounders’, an English sport that may have spawned from earlier French games, to be the most immediate predecessor. Though there are few records delineating the formation of baseball's rules, references begin to appear in the late 1700s under a variety of names. "Town ball", "round ball" and "baseball" were all frequently used names.
Where did baseball come from?
In fact, references to baseball date back to as far as the late 1700s in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in a decree to prohibit the game near the town’s meeting house. However, before that, there have been vague references to baseball as a game of “bat and ball” in various British and American documents that date back to the early 1700s. The game of baseball has evolved from generation to generation, and this evolution may be quite hard to be precisely defined. The only consensus that people have is the fact that modern baseball did root from North American influences on the old game “rounder’s” (from Ireland and Great Britain), which is quite similar to softball and baseball except for some specific rules.