The Rise of America's National Game

For American men, no nineteenth-century sport exceeded baseball in popularity. The game started in the 1840s as an enjoyable pastime that allowed urban men to play, drink, and socialize. As its popularity spread, entrepreneurs began to reshape it as a commercial enterprise. They erected fences around fields, charged admission, began to pay talented players, changed the rules to make the game more exciting, and promoted rivalries between squads representing major cities. Professional leagues sprang up, most notably the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, whose founders included the player, promoter, and future sporting goods manufacturer Albert Spalding. Keeping teams and leagues afloat posed significant financial challenges, and the century saw many come and go, including the short-lived Players’ League that players formed in an unsuccessful effort to wrest control of their careers away from increasingly imperious team owners. But by 1900, semiprofessional and professional “nines” that represented towns or businesses could be found throughout the country, and millions of fans flocked to their games each summer. The “American Game” also spread to Cuba and other parts of Latin America as part of the overseas expansion of American political and economic interests.