Origins of baseball
The question of the origins of baseball has been the subject of debate and controversy for more than a century. Baseball and the other modern bat, ball, and running games – stoolball, cricket and rounders – were developed from folk games in early Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe. Early forms of baseball had a number of names, including "base ball", "goal ball", "round ball", "fetch-catch", "stool ball", and, simply, "base". In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, much like in the Nordic brännboll, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Just as now, in some versions a batter was called out after three strikes.
Although much is unclear, as one would expect of children's games of long ago, this much is known: by the mid-18th century a game had appeared in the south of England, which involved striking a pitched ball and then running a circuit of bases set out in a diamond pattern. Base-Ball is referenced in 1744 in the children's book A Little Pretty Pocket-Book English colonists took this game to North America with their other pastimes, and in the early 1800s variants were being played on both sides of the ocean under many appellations. However, the game was very significantly altered by amateur men's ball clubs in and around New York City in the middle of the 19th century, and it was this heavily revised sport that became modern baseball.
Folk games in early Britain, Ireland and continental Europe
A number of folk games in early Britain and continental Europe had characteristics that can be seen in modern baseball. Many of these early games involved a ball that was thrown at a target while an opposing player defended the target by attempting to hit the ball away. If the batter successfully hit the ball, he could attempt to score points by running between bases while fielders would attempt to catch or retrieve the ball and put the runner out.Folk games differed over time, place, and culture, resulting in similar yet variant forms. These games had no standard documented rules and instead were played according to historical customs. These games tended to be played by working classes, peasants, and children. Early folk games were often associated with earlier religious ceremonies and worship rituals. These games became discouraged and even altogether prohibited by subsequent governing states and religious authorities.
Aside from obvious differences in terminology, the games differed in the equipment used, the way in which the ball was thrown, the method of scoring, the method of making outs, the layout of the field and the number of players involved. Very broadly speaking, these games can be roughly divided into forms of longball, where the batter ran out to a single point or line and back, as in cricket, and roundball, where there was a circuit of multiple bases. There were also games which involved no running at all.
Oină
Oină is a Romanian traditional sport, a form of longball similar in many ways to lapta.The name "oină" was originally "hoina", and is derived from the Cuman word oyn "game".
The oldest direct mention comes from 1364.
In 1899, Spiru Haret, the minister of education decided that oină was to be played in schools in physical education classes. He organized the first annual oină competitions.
The Romanian Oină Federation was founded in 1932, and was reactivated at the beginning of the 1950s, after a brief period when it was dissolved.
Today, there are two oină federations: one in Bucharest, Romania and another one in Chişinău, Moldova.
Stoolball
In an 1802 book entitled The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, Joseph Strutt claimed to have shown that baseball-like games can be traced back to the 14th century, in particular an English game called stoolball. The earliest known reference to stoolball is in a 1330 poem by William Pagula, who recommended to priests that the game be forbidden within churchyards.In stoolball, one player throws the ball at a target while another player defends the target. Originally, the target was defended with a bare hand. Later, a bat of some kind was used. "Stob-ball" and "stow-ball" were regional games similar to stoolball. What the target originally was in stoolball is not certain; it was possibly a tree stump, since "stob" and "stow" all mean stump in some local dialects.. It is notable that in cricket to this day, the uprights of the wicket are called "stumps". Of course, the target could well have been whatever was convenient, perhaps even a gravestone. A 17th-century book on games specifies a stool.
According to one legend, milkmaids played stoolball while waiting for their husbands to return from the fields. Another theory is that stoolball developed as a game played after attending church services, in which case the target was probably a church stool. An 18th-century poem depicts men and women playing together, and it and other references associate the game especially with the Easter season.
There were several versions of stoolball. In the earliest versions, the object was primarily to defend the stool. Successfully defending the stool counted for one point, and the batter was out if the ball hit the stool. There was no running involved. Another version of stoolball involved running between two stools, and scoring was similar to the scoring in cricket. In perhaps yet another version there were several stools, and points were scored by running around them as in baseball.
When Englishmen came to America, they brought stoolball with them. William Bradford in his diary for Christmas Day, 1621, noted how the men of Plymouth were "frolicking in þe street, at play openly; some pitching þe barre, some at stoole-ball and shuch-like sport". Because of the different versions of stoolball, and because it was played not only in England, but also in colonial America, stoolball is considered by many to have been the common ancestor of cricket, baseball and rounders.
Tut-ball
In tut-ball or pize-ball, which was similar to both stoolball and rounders, the corners of the infield were marked by "tuts" rather than stools, and the batter generally hit with their hand.Dog and cat
Another early folk game was "dog and cat", which probably originated in Scotland. In cat and dog an oblong piece of wood called a cat is thrown at a hole in the ground while another player defends the hole with a stick. In some cases there were two holes and, after hitting the cat, the batter would run between them while fielders would try to get the runner out by putting the cat in the hole before the runner got to it. Dog and cat thus resembled cricket.Horne-billets
This game, otherwise unknown, was described in Francis Willughby's Book of Games, which included rules for over 130 pastimes including stool-ball and stow-ball. It is significant in that it involved both a bat and base-running, although it was played with a wooden cat rather than a ball and the multiple "bases" were holes in the ground: the batter reached safety by putting the end of his bat in a hole before the fielders could put the cat in it. This has echoes in cricket's manner of scoring runs by touching the bat to the ground across the crease before the fielders can hit the nearby wicket with the ball.Trap ball
In trap ball, played in England since the 14th century, a ball was thrown in the air, to be hit by a batsman and fielded. In some variants a member of the fielding team threw the ball in the air; in some, the batter tossed it himself as in fungo; in others, the batsman caused the ball to be tossed in the air by a simple lever mechanism: versions of this, called bat and trap and Knurr and spell, are still played in some English pubs. In trap-ball there was no running, instead the fielders attempted to throw the ball back to within a certain distance of the batter's station. Trap-ball may be the origin of the concept of foul lines; in most variants the ball had to be hit between two posts to count.A related game was tip-cat; in this, the "cat" was an oblong piece of wood ; it tapered toward each end, rather like a rugby ball or American football, so that striking one end would flip it into the air much like the trap in trap-ball so that it could be struck with a stick or bat.
Base
An old English game called "base" or "prisoners' base", described by George Ewing at Valley Forge, was apparently not much like baseball. There was no bat and no ball involved. The game was more like a fancy game of team "tag", although it did share the concept of places of safety, bases, with baseball.Cricket
The history of cricket prior to 1650 is something of a mystery. Games believed to have been similar to cricket had developed by the 13th century. There was a game called "creag", and another game, "Handyn and Handoute", which was made illegal in 1477 by King Edward IV, who considered the game childish, and a distraction from compulsory archery practice.References to a game actually called "cricket" appeared around 1550. It is believed that the word cricket is based either on the word cric, meaning a crooked stick : early forms of cricket used a curved bat somewhat like a hockey stick; or on a Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de sen, or on the Flemish word "krickstoel", which refers to a stool upon which one kneels in church and which the early long, low wicket resembled. The word is etymologically related to French croquet- early forms of which were also played with a curved stick rather than a mallet.
The earliest known mention of baseball, as a children's game, dates from the same year in which the Artillery Ground Laws formalised the rules of what was already a first-class, professional sport sponsored by nobility and upon which vast wagers were laid.
English colonists played cricket along with their other games from home, and it is mentioned many times in 18th-century American sources. As an organized sport, the Toronto Cricket Club was established in that city by 1827 and the St George's Cricket Club was formed in 1838 in New York City. Teams from the two clubs faced off in the first international cricket game in 1844 that Toronto won by 23 runs. Many of the early New York club baseball players were also cricketers, and the earliest recorded inter-club baseball game was played on the Union Star Cricket Grounds in Brooklyn.