Baseball Geek Group: Jimm Hendren, Origins

The real origin of baseball has been disputed since it became popular because of its similarities with other older games. A number of games are said to be early forms of baseball like “stool ball”, “round ball” and “goal ball”. The basic premise of each game is the ball pitching and player running around bases and getting tagged out.

Actually, there were very few details on how the modern baseball evolved from folk games. A popular notion is that the different folk games came together and was made into a game called “town ball”, the eventual precursor of baseball while others assert that that game is totally different from baseball.

Several folk games in England are similar to the modern baseball or cricket as they involve a bat thrown at a target item (ball). And since they were folk games, there were official rules as they change over time or the rules are simply too basic that they did not find it necessary at that time to document it.

Two major groups have surfaced, English and American, claiming that baseball evolved from their own local games — the English claim it was from their folk game called “rounders” while the Americans claim it’s from their game one-ol’-cat).

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