Backstory: Baseball because it as soon as used to be

And while we refer to itas the American pastime, its origins are steeped in myth. Earlybaseball in the 19th century looks a lot differentthan it does today. But it's still being playedby people who have an appreciationfor history. This looks like a sceneout of 1850, an old Methodist campgroundnorthwest of Chicago. The Deep River Grinders facethe Chicago.

Salmon of the VintageBaseball Association. I think it just becomes back tobeing as American as apple pie. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you. Good morning and welcome. Each game starts with a ceremonyled by the umpire in the tophat and the team captains. My name is Ryanthe Stroker Trisler. And these are the restof the Deep River Grinders. I'm Bob Zeus Rzeszutkoand the rest of the salmon.

So everybody triesto create a feel that when you come to a game,you're being drawn back in time. You may have heard Abner Doubleday is the inventor ofthe American game of baseball. Not only is it a myth, it justmight be an outright lie. With newspapers becomingdigitized, historians ca hpiece together the back storyto debunk the legends and recreate earlyversions of a game that's become synonymouswith America.

Anyone could play it. Big guys. Little guys. At this point, it's kind of engraved in the American spirit. Geezer. Young and old. Papa Bear. Men and women. Flapjack Professional and blue collar alikeare known by their nicknames.

Dizzy. Part of the fun of vintagebaseball. Scooter. There are more than 100 teamsaround the country. Golden Rose. We're recruiting moreand more young people who have the historyanand the willingness to do tha. Are players allowed to pull outtheir cell phones or wear Sunglasses? No, no, no, no.

But we try as much as popossible to removeall indications of modernity. Is there drinking? I take the Fifth Amendment safe in early versions of the game. The ball is pitched underhand. The idea is to letthe batter hit it. There are no gloveslike baseball without gloves. Are you out of your mind?.

So I showed upand they gave me the ball. I'm like, All right,I think I can do this. This is all right. Todd Daniels is in the majorleagues with the Tampa Bay Rays as a data engineer. So you were like at the completeopposite of the spectrumof vintage baseball? Yes. He compiles information for the Rays statisticiansin research and development.

The Rays, their front officeactually has a softball league. When I first joined, they found out that I played here. Should we be scouting for that? Like, average age is like 45-50. I don't thinkwe need to scout there. We won't find a whole lot thatwe'll want to bring to the Rays. While statistics provide great consistency throughthe different eras of baseball, nobody here is calculating winsagainst replacement.

Or measuring bat speed. In the mid-19th century,you can catch the ball on a bounce for an out. The ball is a bitsofter than today's baseball. Some versions of the early gameallow you to throw the ball at the player to get an outcalled plugging or soaking. It was brutal. I had read an account where a player slippedand fell, running to second base.

And the fielder came upand plugged him aggressively in the neck. So where did this all come from? There are similaritiesto cricket & other games like Rounders,which is played in England. Baseball'spioneers are tired of a British sportswriters constantcomparison to British games. American playerswant an American back story. In 1889, 300 peopleattend a meeting in New York,.

Including Mark Twain,Teddy Roosevelt and a number of baseballpioneers like Albert Spalding, presidentof the National League's Chicago White Stockings. They form a commissionto investigate the origin of baseball. This is where we findthe story of Abner Doubleday, inventing baseballin Cooperstown, New York. Sure.

Before becoming a union general,Doubleday plays baseball, but there's no record of him everclaiming to invent the game. Nevertheless, Albert Spaldingand the commission accept the story. Albert Spaldingwas an early player, actually, out of Rockford. He became a sports magnet, you know, Spalding baseballand the whole bit. And he feltthis was the all-American game.

And he was going to proveit was the American game. It did not come from cricketand rounders and all kinds of other foreign influences. Historians have since debunkedthe Abner Doubleday story. Was it just a slow evolution? Look at the history of baseball. You can't tell methat somebody didn't pick up a rock and a stickand hit it. Way back when.

There are variousversions of bat and ball games, rounders, old townball, old cat. There are many people who have helped formwhat we now call baseball. There are mentions of baseballgoing back to England 1744, a book calledA Little Pretty Pocket Book. The ball oncestruck off, away flies the boy to the next destined postand then home with joy. People play for exercise, butit slowly becomes more serious.

In the late 1830s and forties,teams form around occupations like the firefightersor the New York Knickerbockers or the saloon keepers of the NewYork Magnolia Ball Club. Jim Creighton of the Excelsiorof Brooklyn is considered one of the first paid playersand superstars of baseball. Creighton was the firstto use speed on a pitch and he was also an excellent hitter. Money changes Baseball. New technology allows newspapersto expand coverage.

Beyond politics.Reporting on baseball. That's when gambling becomesa bigger part of the game. But over time, something strange happens. People come to gamesnot to gamble, just to root for the home team. Today, you can go back in time to experiencepart of that evolution during the week.

Laurie Edwardsis an environmental scientist on weekends. She's the Chicago SalmonTheatrical Athletics. They say that'swhat they call it. It's it's a lot of fun. I was a baseball card kidand I played Little League with the boys. So here I am. This field.

Here used to have about 11 trees and they had to be cut downbecause they were diseased. But we saved the heartwood, which is what they makebaseball bats out of now. Ellie Carlson is called the bosslady of the Chicago Salmon. And this bat was madefrom the heartwood of one of the trees that hadto be cut down on this field. And they're very preciousto us. Above all, Ryan Trisleris the captain of the grinders.

It's just comes back down to playing with people who lovethe game. It's not super competitive and it'sjust at the end of the day, you walk off the field laughingnot only with your teammates, but alsowith the other team as well. Cooperstownis the dream destination for major leaguers,but its origin story is a myth. The true story is moreinteresting.

A ga started by saloonkeepers, soldiers, firefighters and lawyers who playwith no glove and no mask. Just for the love of the game.

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