Field of Dreams - The Innocence in History :: Field of Dreams Essays

Field of Dreams - The Innocence in History [1] Baseball is America’s favorite pastime. When people hear the word "America," they think of apple pie, meat and potatoes, July 4th, and inevitably the everlasting love of this country, baseball. The credit is given to a man named Alexander J. Cartwright, who drew up a set of rules for a game played with a bat, a round ball, and a glove. Along with the rules came a sketching of a diamond-shaped field on which the game was to be played. The rules that Cartwright wrote up in 1845 may have very well changed somewhat, but the game of baseball has remained remarkably constant throughout history into today. [2] Cartwright was a part of a baseball club team called the â€Å"New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club,† and his rules were for use of only this club. Soon after, other clubs started to become interested in these rules, and they adopted them into their own ball clubs and games. â€Å"It is evident that other teams were playing a good brand of ball, for in the first baseball game on record, played in Elysian Fields, Hoboken, N.J., on June 19, 1846, a team called the New Yorks, playing under Cartwright’s rules on a diamond of his specifications, defeated the Knickerbockers 23 to 1 in four innings† (Lieb1). [3] Baseball then expanded itself and moved on to integrating young men of â€Å"means and social positions.† In the 1850’s, baseball had a tremendous power that engaged many people from the East Coast part of the country. It got artisans, tradesmen, and shipwrights to form teams and play against each other. These teams of working men played against other teams that were made up of socialites. Within these club teams, though, there was a lot of disagreement because the people who used to partake in these games were mainly from the New York and Massachusetts areas. There were many discrepancies between the New York rules and the Massachusetts rules. This then led to the founding of the National Association of Baseball Players on March 10, 1858. [4] The new rules that the National Association of Baseball Players had installed then allowed the amateurs and others to play the game as well.