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Show Origin of Baseball Is Traced Back to England The origin of the gume of baseball Is somewhat obscure, although authorities authori-ties are strongly of the opinion that It Is a development of the old English Eng-lish game of rounders. The first appearance ap-pearance of any game similar to baseball base-ball In this country was in the early Nineteenth century. A gitnie known as "One Old Cat" was popular with schoolboys In the North Atlantic states. It was played by three boys, each fielding and hutting In turn, runs being scored by batsman running to the single base and back again without with-out being cried "out." There were also modifications of this game with four, six and eight plnyers. As the game developed It became known as townball, and In 1833 the Olympic Town Bull club was organized In Philadelphia. Phil-adelphia. The first actual matches between be-tween organized busehall clubs took place about 18-10 and in the neighborhood neighbor-hood of New York. It was in 1843 that the Washington hnsehall club was organized, but not until two years later were the first regular rules drawn up by the Knickerbocker Baseball club. The first National association was organized or-ganized In 1858, und the first entirely professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Cincin-nati Red Stockings, was organized ten years later. |