At a time when interest in baseball seems to be on the decline a bit, it seems fitting to review the history of the sport.  A sport that has such a rich past should get some respect.  Not only can it be intense and exciting, it should be appreciated for it's universal qualities.   

It seems that every culture, since very early, has had some sort of ball and bat game.  The idea of hitting an object with a stick of some sorts seems to be indigenous to the human condition.  Baseball is one of the many sports to come out of this tradition.  Other sports, like cricket, are also born of a similar idea.      

Amazingly, not much is known, or accepted to be true about the beginning of baseball.  Over the past century or so, intrigue surrounding the history of baseball has been governed by a large amount of debate and conflict.  Folk games greatly influenced a number of games involving bats and balls.  The original versions of these games were similar to one another, with slight variations based on regional and national nuances.  At the end of the day, Rounders is generally accepted are the game that evolved into what we know as baseball.

Rounders is an English pastime called.  A form of this is game is still played in parts of Ireland and various games that are a cross between baseball and Rounders are played around the world.  The game involves a Feeder, who resembles the modern day pitcher.  A mound called The Castle Rock, or what we might call home plate, and sanctuaries.  The sanctuaries are even distances from The Castle Rock and are represented by stakes. The game came to England during the 16th century.  As English settlers began to populate different parts of the world they brought Rounders with them.  By the 17th century the game had been revolutionized and Americans took to calling it Townball.  It was around this time that Alexander Joy Cartwright took the sport a step further by creating the first baseball field. 

From the beginning of 1800s, little towns put together baseball teams and bigger cities organized baseball clubs.  Alexander Cartwright was the guy who decided to set up a bunch of rules and apply them to the game.  Some of the rules Cartwright put in place are still in place.  Despite the fact that there is a fashionable myth that baseball was discovered Abner Doubleday, Cartwright is accepted as baseball's pioneer.

A year after Cartwright established the rules of baseball, the first documented baseball game as recorded.  Cartwright team, the Knickerbockers, fail to the New York Baseball Club in a match at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.  As popularity and the frequency of games grew, the game spread.  A bunch of teams came together in 1857 met talk about the future of baseball.  Delegates from twenty-five amateurs baseball teams met to discuss the game.  The next year, the National Association of Base Ball Players was created and first regulated baseball league was underway.  The league began charging admission and generating a fan base.

As the price to keep the league going increased, the cost of playing the game climbed as well.  Paying to see games began to be the norm.  Trips were financed by donations or funded by sponsors.  The better the team, the easier it was to gain the necessary money to sustain it. Many players were paid under the table even though everyone was supposed to be an amateur. 

The first actual professional baseball team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings.  In 1869 Harry and George Wright collected the most talented baseball players across the country, making the Cincinnati Red Stockings a star studded team.  At the end of the season the Red Stockings were unbeaten.  The success and profitability of the professional baseball team became very attractive.  Thus, the birth of baseball being a viable business venture began; a notion that baseball fans are all too familiar with these days. 

Over time the desire of some purist to keep baseball amateur gave way to profitability.  By 1871, the National Association became the choice of good baseball players around the United States.  It became the first organized baseball league that year.