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1. Why was baseball made?

2. Who invented Baseball?

3. why do so many people like baseball?

4. When was baseball made?

5. Was baseball made last?

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How did baseball develop? - DailyHistory.org

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Baseball has been called America's pastime and for most of the 20th Century it was the most popular sport in the country. Even though baseball is an iconic American sport, it developed over an extraordinarily long period of time.

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Baseball continues to thrive. (Getty Images)

We already knew that Major League Baseball posted revenues of $7.5 billion in 2012 and that attendance continues to boom, but here's some more good news for baseball: It ranks second behind, obviously, the NFL in the latest Harris Poll on America's favorite sports.

Of the adults polled, 34 percent said pro football was their favorite sport, not surprisingly making it the top dog in American sports. Actually, I'm surprised the gap wasn't wider. Baseball checked in at No. 2 with 16 percent of the vote, followed by college football (11 percent), auto racing (eight percent), men's pro basketball (seven percent), hockey (five percent) and men's college basketball (three percent).

Now, I found the headline on adage.com a bit odd. It was "Look out, baseball, college football is hot on your cleats." I found it odd because, last year, baseball and college football were tied for second at 13 percent each. So baseball gained three percentage points, college football lost two and it's "look out, baseball?"

The reason for that headline would be that demographics show the younger crowd prefers college football over baseball, but still, there's this:

According to a study by Scarborough Research, 109.3 million people, or 48% of U.S. adults over 18 years of age, watched, attended or listened to an MLB game from February 2011 through March 2012.

That compares to 92.6 million, or 39% of adults, who watched, attended or listened to a college-football game during the same period.

Even if (when?) college football does surpass baseball in popularity, I'm pretty sure having more than 100 million people paying attention to a sport means it'll survive just fine.

Still, I doubt this will quiet the persistent "baseball is dying" crowd. I have no idea why some are so eager to say baseball is dying, but we'll let them maintain their delusion while our favorite game thrives.
For more baseball news, rumors and analysis, follow @EyeOnBaseball on Twitter, subscribe to the RSS feed and "like" us on Facebook.

Matt Snyder has been a baseball writer with CBS Sports since 2011. A member of the BBWAA, he's now covered the last six World Series beginning with the epic 2011 Fall Classic. The former Indiana University... Full Bio

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Poll finds baseball second-most popular American sport

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We already knew that Major League Baseball posted a revenue of $7.5 billion in 2012 and that attendance continues to boom, but here's some more good news as far as the popularity of baseball: It ranks second behind, obviously, the NFL in the latest Harris Poll regarding America's favorite sports.

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WARS couldn't stop major league baseball, the Depression couldn't stop major league baseball; it seems the only thing that could is major league baseball itself. By the very threat of the players' strike, the idea that the great stadia would be empty this summer - and the crack of bat against ball merely an echo in the mind - gives pause to reflect on baseball and its meaning in the warp and woof of life.

''Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball,'' Jacques Barzun, the social commentator, wrote more than a quarter of a century ago.

''Fundamentally,'' Barzun said in an interview last week, ''things haven't changed. Baseball still reflects our society, it's just that our society has changed.''

Baseball, Barzun says, once expressed the unification of America, the teamwork involved. ''When we look at the triumphs of American technology on a large scale,'' he says, ''we see the fine workings of a national machinery - everybody in every department cooperating effectively with no gaps in time.

''It was like the making of a double play perhaps. Or a relay in which nine men speedily clicked together to achieve a desired result. It's a beautiful thing to observe.

''But now, the contentions in baseball parallel the enormous unrest in our society - there's more litigation, for example, than ever before. And the star system has gotten out of hand. The teamwork that once marked the beauty of baseball is now scorned, and along with the diminishing appreciation for the rich qualities of baseball, there has developed diminished appreciation for the rich qualities of American life.'' A Dimension of Summer

But a summer without baseball would not be quite the same for Barzun - who is still a casual fan - or for Jake Rabinowitz, proprietor of A & J Grocery on Second Avenue, who said, ''I wouldn't have all the aggravation watching the Mets and Yankees, especially this season, but sometimes they give me pleasure - once in a while they win.''

For Roger Angell, a writer for The New Yorker magazine, baseball would be missed. ''It's part of my summer habits - and maybe my winter habits, too,'' he said. ''I suppose I'd get along all right without it, but I'd rather not. There is a continuity with baseball -and there'd be a feeling of loss with it, like, there goes something else in our lives.''

One of the qualities that Angell likes best about baseball has been its relative stability. He wrote: ''Within the ball park, time moves differently, marked by no clock except the events of the game. This is the unique, unchangeable feature of baseball and perhaps explains why this sport, for all the enormous changes it has undergone in the past decade or two, remains somehow rustic, unviolent and introspective. Baseball's time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors.''

The late Bruce Catton, the historian, said that ''baseball is a ... pageant and a ritualized drama, as completely formalized as a Spanish bullfight, and although it is wholly urbanized it still speaks of the small town in the simple rural era that lived before the automobile came in to blight the landscape. One reason for this is that in a land of unending change, baseball changes very little.'' Ambitions of America

But it seems to have often reflected the mood of the nation, and its ambitions.

Mark Twain wrote at the turn of the century that baseball was ''the very symbol of the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming 19th century.''

For many it remained that way into the 20th century. ''America was the land of opportunity where even a poor boy could grow up to be Babe Ruth,'' wrote Douglass Walop, in ''Baseball: An Informal History.''

Once those sentiments were expressed about the Presidency. But, Walop went on, ''Cal Coolidge moved through life with careful sidesteps, smiling sour smiles. Babe Ruth laughed a mighty laugh, strode with the stride of a giant, slamming the door of his Stutz Bearcat and wading through the crowds, long camel hair coat flapping near his ankles, big brown eyes shining, a long cigar stuck between the fat lips, and grinning as they all say, 'hiya, Babe,' and yelling back, 'Hiya, Kid... Sure, Kid... Atta Boy, Kid, keep swinging from the heels.' ''

Surely there were those who resented Ruth making more than the President of the United States, but his larger-than-life qualities overshadowed the money aspect. Today, though, the big bucks intrude on our summer devotions, says Angell. ''A lot of people find it insupportable, and against the work ethic, that young men can make so much money. You're supposed to work hard for not much money at something you don't like when you're young, and improve on that as you get older.

''And this idea of players making large amounts of money also says something uncomfortable about our society, where a ballplayer can make so much more than, say, a teacher. But it's not the fault of the players. The money is obviously there. It seems like the owners have a death wish about the game.''

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WHAT IS BASEBALL'S MEANING AND ITS EFFECT ON AMERICA

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WARS couldn't stop major league baseball, the Depression couldn't stop major league baseball; it seems the only thing that could is major league baseball itself. By the very threat of the players' strike, the idea that the great stadia would be empty this summer - and the crack of bat against ball merely an echo in the mind - gives pause to reflect on baseball and its meaning in the warp and woof of life.

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95 Awesome Facts about Baseball | FactRetriever.com

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Take me out to the ball game! Find out why baseball has long been considered America's favorite pastime with our list of interesting & fun baseball facts.

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For decades, baseball has remained such a constant that its rules and structure have become as cherished as its greatest players. The run-scoring environment might have changed a bit since 1905, but the fundamental look and feel of the game hasn't. Legendary sportswriter and Spink Award winner Red Smith, as always, said it best: "Ninety feet between bases is perhaps as close as man has ever come to perfection."

But, while Red certainly had a point, the story behind that perfection was less divine intervention than a whole lot of trial and error. So, how did baseball get here? Why are there four balls and three strikes, anyway? You have questions, we have answers.
Why do pitchers throw overhand?
Chad Bradfords of the world aside, baseball history has been written by men throwing overhand. But it wasn't always this way: For decades, every pitcher had to throw with their arm directly perpendicular to the ground, as you can make out in this illustration of a game from the 1860s:

(Incidentally, this is also why they're referred to as "pitchers" -- they pitched the ball in the traditional sense of the term, with a stiff underhanded motion, almost like tossing a horseshoe.)

If that sounds like a pretty easy time for hitters, well, that was the point. Baseball evolved from other stick and ball games like cricket, so, like in those games, pitchers weren't originally intended to be in opposition to the batter. Their purpose was simple: Offer the ball up in a hittable position and get out of the way. Presumably tired of getting shelled year after year, pitchers like Tommy Bond started pushing the envelope inch by inch, creating greater speed and movement with essentially sidearm deliveries -- until, in 1872, the perpendicular rule was relaxed to allow for greater range of motion.

At that point, all bets were off: Pitchers -- recognizing that they could throw harder, locate better and throw more ferocious breaking balls -- began to creep their release point all the way up to a three-quarters arm slot by the early 1880s. Finally, in 1884, Cincinnati Red Stockings boss and "Father of Professional Baseball" Harry Wright made it official: Pitchers could deliver the ball any way they wanted. The move fundamentally changed the relationship to the batter, and changed much of the game with it -- from the rule stipulating that batters could dictate where the pitch was thrown to the function of balls and strikes. Speaking of which ...
Why are batters given four balls and three strikes?
"Three strikes you're out" has been a foundational rule of baseball since the very beginning -- it was even codified in the 1845 Knickerbocker Rules, thought to be some of the very first written rules of the game. For everything else, though, it's been a long and winding road.

Again, baseball's primary objective in the mid-19th century was to let batters put the ball in play as much as possible. So, naturally, those batters were given plenty of chances to make that happen. And we do mean plenty: Initially, called strikes didn't even exist, and when they were instituted in 1858, they came with caveats -- the first pitch couldn't be a called strike, and umpires were required to warn each batter that a certain pitch would be called a strike in the future.

[Game show voice] But that's not all! The idea of a "ball" didn't yet exist, either, so eventually pitchers recognized that they could continue to deliver pitches well wide of the plate and wait for the batter to get impatient. As you might imagine, this created some, uh, pretty drastic pace of play concerns: Batters, free to wait for the perfect pitch, would see up to 40-50 pitches per at-bat -- in one 1860 game between the Brooklyn Atlantics and the Brooklyn Excelsiors, 665 pitches were thrown ... over three innings.

Games were routinely called due to lack of daylight, so, in 1863, called balls were instituted. Even when the concept was introduced, though, it was slowly and tentatively: Only every third "unfair" pitch was called a ball, meaning a batter could only walk afternine (!) pitches outside of the strike zone.

As run-scoring declined and pitchers began to do more than just feed batters, the rule was frequently adjusted -- first to eight balls, then to seven, then to six and so on, until in 1889, the league settled on four.
Why nine innings (and why nine men in a lineup)?
In baseball's infancy, not only was it a game without a clock, but it was also a game without a set number of innings. Instead, teams played until one of them scored 21 aces -- the 19th century equivalent of a run.

This wasn't a problem at first, in an age in which scoring runs was pretty commonplace -- games lasted an average of only six innings in the 1840s, and featured scores as high as 60-100 combined runs. A problem was brewing, though: As skill levels increased and pitching caught up to hitting, those 21 aces were harder and harder to come by. After an 1856 game ended in a 12-12 tie on account of darkness, it was clear that a change needed to be made. Enter Alexander Cartwright, founder of the Knickerbocker Club and definitely not a real fireman:

That begged the question: Exactly how many innings was the right amount? At that point, the Knickerbockers were torn between seven or nine men to a side -- it all depended on how many were available that day -- and for consistency's sake, the number of players dictated the number of innings played. Alas, this couldn't be decided without some good old-fashioned squabbling. From MLB official historian John Thorn:

In an 1856 Knickerbocker meeting, [two members] backed a motion to permit nonmembers to take part in intramural games if fewer than eighteen Knicks were present ... Duncan F. Curry countermoved that if fourteen Knickerbockers were available, the game should admit no outsiders and be played shorthanded, as had been their practice since 1845.

Sensing that an official ruling was necessary as more and more baseball teams were formed, the Knickerbockers decided to form a committee in 1856 to tackle the issue. The desire for more competitive defense won out, and nine innings -- and nine men -- became the standard for good.
Why 162 games?
Initially, baseball's scheduling was simple: In 1920, the American and National Leagues both had eight teams, and each team would play its league rival 22 times, giving us the 154-game slate that would last for four decades.

And then expansion happened. In 1961, the AL added the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators. The next year, the NL welcomed the New York Mets and the Houston Colt .45s. (Yes, this did lead to one year in which the AL's schedule was slightly longer -- they both covered the same number of days, but the NL got more days off.) Suddenly, the simple math was slightly more complicated: Each team playing every other team in the league 22 times would have resulted in an untenable 198-game schedule.

So, MLB cut it to 18 games against each league rival, and 162 games was born. But, while that number has endured, it hasn't been without some controversy as further expansions made the calculation a bit trickier: 76 games within the same division, 66 against non-divisional league opponents and 20 Interleague games. A bit involved? Sure. But, as Thorn to Mental Floss back in 2014, good luck changing it: "Baseball is a religion. It becomes the 11th commandment: 162 games."
How did home plate get its shape?
Believe it or not, home plate wasn't always the square-triangle hybrid we know today. Until the turn of the 20th century, games used just about any object teams could find, be it made of metal, marble or even glass. The only thing that mattered was the shape: Home plate had to be circular.

As you may have already guessed, this posed a problem: Imagine sliding into home, only to find your leg scraped or sliced by a piece of rock. (Robert Keating, the man who patented the design for the rubber, even complained that tapping one's bat on home would " jar the batter's hands".) So, in the 1880s, changes were made. The National League mandated a rubber or marble plate in 1885, and in 1887, home plate was transformed into a 12 inch-by-12 inch square -- in line with the other three bases.

This posed difficulties of its own, though -- it was awfully hard to tell whether or not a ball caught the corner when the corner was as small as a single point. The solution? Create a base that was a forward-facing square in the front, to allow for a longer line demarcating the strike zone, while maintaining the diamond look at the back.
Why is it 60 feet, six inches to home?
If you think Aroldis Chapman is impressive now, consider: If Chapman had pitched back in 1888, when the mound was just 50 feet away from home plate, he likely would have been clocked at around 125 mph.

For much of the game's early history, the distance from pitcher to home plate was a fuzzy concept -- the Knickerbocker Rules didn't settle on a fixed distance, and by the 1870s, pitchers simply had to stay within a box whose front edge was 45 feet from the front of home plate (again, similar to cricket, though the pitcher wasn't allowed a running start).

This worked for a while ... until pitchersbegan to move beyond the simple underhand delivery. In 1880, Lee Richmond tossed the first perfect game in Major League history, and John Ward followed up with one of his own just five days later. The two games -- along with the fact that the National League ERA that year was an absurd 2.93 -- sent shockwaves through professional baseball ... and not simply because of Ward's Snidely Whiplash facial hair.

Over the next few years, pitching moved closer to what we know today. Looking to goose offense, the front of the pitcher's box was moved back to 50 feet away, and by 1887 -- with overhand deliveries now the law of the league -- pitchers were required to start their delivery with their feet 55.5 feet from home.

Desperate for some offense with fan attendance on the decline, the Senior Circuit moved the box back one more time. They settled on five more feet -- pushing the pitcher's starting point back to 60 feet, six inches.

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Why is a game 9 innings? These are the backstories behind baseball's iconic rules

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For decades, baseball has remained such a constant that its rules and structure have become as cherished as its greatest players. The run-scoring environment might have changed a bit since 1905, but the fundamental look and feel of the game hasn't.

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Modern baseball may have found its birth certificate. And with it a new birth date, and new founding father.

Coinciding with the start of the major league season, a set of game-changing documents went up for sale this week. Their authenticity and significance are verified by experts including John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian.

The 1857 documents titled "Laws of Base Ball" establish the essentials of the modern game: The distance of the base paths is 90 feet, the length of the game is nine innings and nine players are in the field.

And they do it three years earlier than the 1860 birth date now recognized.

The documents were authored by Daniel Lucius "Doc" Adams, making him the founding father of America's pastime, not Alexander Cartwright, who now is credited.

"He's the true father of baseball and you've never heard of him," Thorn, a consultant on the sale of the papers, said.

Southern California-based SCP Auctions put the documents on sale Wednesday in an auction that lasts until April 23. There have been five bids so far and the current highest bid is $146,410, according to the auction house.

Adams was the president of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, which hosted a convention of 14 New York-area clubs to codify the rules of "Base Ball." (It was two words then and in ensuing decades evolved into "base-ball" and finally "baseball.")

Credit for baseball's basic tenets now lies with Cartwright, whose plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., calls him the father of the modern game. He was not involved in the 1857 meeting.

Hall of Fame spokesman Brad Horn said there are no plans to change or remove Cartwright's plaque.

"Plaques are cast at the time of an individual's election and rely on best information available at the time of an individual's induction," Horn said Thursday. "The Hall of Fame Gallery features a plaque that calls the visitor's attention to this point."

Horn said there were no immediate plans to acknowledge Adams' contributions, but it is something that would be considered as the historical consensus changes.

"We always want to take a longer lens approach," he said.

The documents have not been lost or hidden in recent years but no one quite realized their significance.

The owner, whose name has not been released by the auction house, paid $12,000 for them at a 1999 auction of historic documents of all kinds, but they were sold with no known authorship and minimal description.

They were kept in a desk drawer until about six months ago, when the buyer approached SCP Auctions. Their significance slowly emerged after forensic, handwriting and historical analysis.

"It just got better and better and more and more compelling," said Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions. "It was just mind-blowing once we fully realized what we had."

The documents capture the game at a crossroads, when rules for "base ball" were arbitrary. Thorn suggests the game could easily have evolved into having nine pitchers and one batter instead of the opposite, and it did come very close to having seven or 12 innings instead of nine.

Thorn said newspaper accounts and other documents have suggested 1857 as the founding year and that Adams was responsible. But they didn't carry the weight of documents that stipulate specific rules.

"I call these improbable survivors," Thorn said. "It's finding what you could not have imagined might have existed."

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Who invented baseball? Modern game may have new founder

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A set of game-changing documents from 1857, titled "Laws of Base Ball" establish the essentials of the modern game: The distance of the base paths is 90 feet, the length of the game is nine innings and nine players are in the field. And they do it three years earlier than the 1860 birth date now recognized.