Nabbp and Its Influence on Modern Baseball

962 Words4 Pages
“The Formation of the NABBP and its Influence on ‘Modern’ Baseball” Baseball as a sport has been renowned as one of the most organized and structured institutions in the history of our country. This is why we’ve chosen to recognize baseball as our national pastime. Its configuration, growth, and independence are such that resemble only our great country. But for a sport with such great structure, it puzzles the general population to not know the specific origin of “modern” baseball. The birth of modernized baseball lies in the original constitution of the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). The formation of the NABBP provided specific structure and guidelines, for the first time, to a game that is defined by its organization by “nationalizing” the sport. Throughout the country, people now had specific rules and regulations to follow as they learned to play the fastest growing sport in the country. Although the New York Knickerbockers pioneered the expansion and growth of Base Ball in New York, they still played by their own set of particular rules. Many of the most prominent clubs around the New York area played by “New York” rules, but there were no standardized set of rules for the sport. The National Association of Base Ball Players decided upon a “code of laws which shall hereafter be recognized as authoritative in the game” . These rules established the first basis for people all over the country to follow a specific set of rules and guidelines for the sport, even though it took a while for the sports structure to spread across the country. They even reached the organizational level during the first convention to which they began deciding the specifications of the ball that would be used in play. The Spirit of the Times reported, “Mr. R. G. Cornell submitted three specimen balls of various sizes, 61/3 oz., 61/2 oz., and 63/4 oz.; the

More about Nabbp and Its Influence on Modern Baseball

Open Document