Baseball :: essays research papers

, cricket played a role in the evolution of unionized base roll. From this British game came umpires and innings, and early base hunk writers like Henry Chadwick use cricket terminology such as "batsman," "playing for the side," and "excellent plain" in describing early baseball games. Likewise, the pi singleer baseball innovator vex Wright, a cricket professional turned baseball manager, drew intemperately on his cricket background in promoting baseball as a professional team sport in the United States. By the 1840s different forms of baseball vied for acceptance, including the popular Massachusetts and New York versions of the game. The Massachusetts game use an irregular four-sided field of play, with the four bases located at fixed, crooked distances from each other and the "strikers," or batters position away from the home base. "Scouts," or fielders, put men out by fielding a batted ball on the fly or on the first bounce, or by hitti ng a runner with a thrown ball. But this sparkly version of the game was overshadowed in the late 1840s by the "New York game," a popular version of which was devised by the members of the New York Knickerbocker Club. Organized in 1845 by a band of aspiring gentlemen and baseball enthusiasts, the Knickerbocker version was devised by one of their members, Alexander J. Cartwright. Cartwright prescribed a diamond-shaped infield with bases at ninety feet apart, a standard which has stood the test of time. The pitching distance was set at xlv feet from the home base, and a pitcher was required to "pitch" a ball in a stiff-armed, underhanded fashion. The three-strikes-are-out rule was adopted, and a batter could likewise be put out by a fielder detecting a batted ball in the air, or on the first bounce, or by throwing a fielded ball to the first baseman before the runner arrived.