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Baseball Paper

From the sandlot to stadiums seating over fifty thousand people, the game of baseball has provided people of all ages with a
common foundation; a sport we can all call our national pastime. Though its concept sounds simple, a game using a ball and a
bat, millions of people all over the world have sought involvement in it by either playing at some level, or just sitting back and
watching a game. With professional baseball attracting more and more fans each season, no one knows what limits this sport
can reach. For the time being though, it has been a real "home run."

Like any other sport, baseball developed over an extended period of time spanning way back to the 1600's. The first evidence
of the sport was a game called rounders, which was played in England (Lewine 27). Players hit a ball with a bat, which is
parallel to today's game, but the method's to how the defense put the runners out was the big difference. Similar to dodge ball,
an infielder or outfielder had to throw the ball at the runners. If the ball hit a runner who was off base, he was out. This formula
was called plugging and soon after, its popularity ceased as did the game's (29). Soon after, a transition occurred and the
name rounders changed to town ball and then to Massachusetts's game, and finally the name baseball, developed by American
colonists, stuck. Rules did change over the period of them the names did, such as the number of players, distance between
bases and etc. Around 1840, the Americans solidified the rules and rounders had become baseball.

Even with evidence that baseball developed from rounders, it is believed that a United States Army general named Abner
Doubleday invented the sport in Cooperstown, New York, current home of the Hall of Fame (30). After many disputes,
Albert Spalding, a sporting-goods manufacturer and player of baseball, decided to have a commission decide who originated
the game. In 1908, the commission credited Doubleday with creating the game...