The baseball sport was born in American soil in the 1800s as a new activity for sporting fraternities and a new way for communities to develop a more defined identity. The details of its birth belong to myth, but its development into the “national pastime” tells an elaborate story about American cultural history and values from the perspective of a sport that grew and developed in a parallel fashion to the rest of the nation. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America’s “national pastime. The roots of base ball history links in following manners: 1845: Alexander Cartwright published a set of baseball rules for the Knickerbocker Club of New York, and his rules were widely adopted. 1869: The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first openly-salaried team and are thus considered the first professional team. 1871: The first professional baseball league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, was established. 1876: The first major league, the National League, was formed.
The story of professional baseball in Lynchburg illustrates ways in which baseball shaped community identity and how baseball managed to maintain its place in a society that threatened to find other amusements. During the 1890s, most professional black players were limited to playing in exhibition games on “colored” teams on the barnstorming circuit. Players on major league teams also barnstormed in cities and towns after the regular season was over. In some places black teams and white teams played each other, and some blacks played for all-black teams in otherwise all-white leagues. In amateur baseball, some athletes played on integrated teams such as the Navy baseball champions from the USS Maine. After the issues resolved the national league was formed.
The Essay on Baseball Teams League Team
... name to the National Association Professional Baseball Players (NAPBBP). The new association represented baseball players from ten teams. This was the first professional baseball league. In 1876 the ... Robinson was the first black player to play in the major leagues. He opened the door for black athletes in baseball. In his first ...
The baseball allegory still applies, and is easily understood by anyone who has ever watched and enjoyed a game, for it is this very element, its proponents contend, that made the sport “America’s game.” The survival of professional baseball in sports world is not the story of a radical reawakening or baseball euphoria, but a redefinition of its place in contemporary Sports world. Horse racing was America’s most popular sport until it was passed by baseball later in the century. BIBLIOGRAPHY Richard B. Loyd and Bernard K. Mundy, Lynchburg: A Pictorial History, (Virginia Beach: The Donning Company / Publishers, Inc. 1975) 11-13, 18. Lynchburg Baseball Corporation, Lynchburg Mets 1979 Souvenir Program, 13; Vin Sawyer, Lynchburg baseball historian officially registered with the Society of American Baseball Researchers (SABR), taped interview, October 26, 1994; Tom Webb, elementary school principal and co-owner of “The Wright Stuff” baseball card shop, taped interview, October 26, 1994.
Tom Ledford, administrator, Lynchburg Museum, phone interview, November 7, 1994. Gunther Barth, City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth- Century America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980) 148. Horse racing was America’s most popular sport until it was passed by baseball later in the century..
