Have you ever wondered, where and when baseball started? Who invented baseball? Well. No one precisely knows the answers to these questions, but settlers in America brought with them the English games of cricket, rounders and the similar townball, which gradually evolved into the game we know today.

The first known reference to “baseball” as a game was in 1791 in Massachusetts where a town bye-law banned it from the proximity of the town meeting house. There is also a detailed account of a game of base ball in Ontario, Canada in June1838.

However, in 1845 the ‘Knickerbocker Rules’, named after the breeches worn at the time, were devised to regularize the playing of baseball. Alexander Cartwright was given credit for shaping baseball into what it is today. On September 23, 1845, Cartwright published “Rules and Regulations of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club.” These 20 rules are the basis of the rules of the present Major League Baseball (MLB). The Knickerbockers became the first team to wear uniforms.

More years later and baseball had become so popular that professionals started to play for the better and richer teams and the game was transformed. The success of this formula and the popularity of the game itself led to the foundation of a National League which was the first true major league.

Although baseball started in England it has come a very long way from its humble origins.