Do you know who invented baseball? Is it a British game or an American game? Who gets to take credit for the traditional American pastime of heading to the stadium for hot dogs and beer while cheering on your favorite slugger? Even while there is an officially designated birthplace of baseball and founder of the game, debate rages on. 

British or American?
There’s no doubt that games similar to baseball were long being played in town squares and back yards on both sides of the ocean. In Great Britain, "rounders" was sweeping the country; at the same time, Yankees were playing games of "base” and “townball”. It appears baseball is an evolution of rounders, formalized by Alexander Cartwright, founder of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, in 1845. In 1953, the US Congress made it officially, crediting Cartwright with inventing modern baseball.

The Scandal of Doubleday Versus Cartwright
Cartwright? What about Abner Doubleday? You may have heard rumors that it was Doubleday who actually invented baseball. A committee known as the Mills Commission was appointed in 1905 to determine the origins of the game; testimony suggested that Doubleday created the game as we know it in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839.

The testimony presented to that commission has since been discredited, which casts the light onto Cartwright. What we know for sure is Alexander Cartwright wrote and published a set of baseball rules for the Knickerbocker Club of New York in 1845 and that he is the man responsible for the first official American baseball field. Because of these significant contributions, Alexander Cartwright is credited with “inventing” baseball, although a closer look would indicate he legitimized or formalized the game of baseball. Its actual invention was surely the work of many Brits and Americans, working out the rules in the dirt streets and back fields as they slugged baseballs and slid safely onto homemade bases.

Baseball Firsts
Baseball tickets were first sold in 1846 at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J., even though players were not yet paid or called professionals. The two teams competing were the Knickerbocker Club of New York and the New York Baseball Club. The first baseball uniforms were officially created and used in 1949. The first baseball league was established in 1858 and was called the National Association of Baseball Players.