The Pioneer Baseball Club.
The pioneer club to play under the rules was the Knickerbockers. On June 19, 1846, the first match game ever played took place at Hoboken, New Jersey. It consisted of four innings, the rule being that the club that first made twenty-one runs should be awarded the game.
The sport prospered and the organization of the Knickerbockers was followed by the Gothams in 1850, and then by such familiar names to oldtimers as the Eckfords, of Greenpoint, and Unions, of Morrisania, in 1855.
The club idea spread eastward. In 1854 the Olympic Club was formed in Boston, and for a year this was the only one in the field in New England. The coming of 1855, however, found the Elm Trees ready to dispute the Olympics' claims of superiority, and the first match game of baseball ever played in New England was that in which these teams met. In 1856 the Green Mountain Club was formed, and several exciting games were played between that club and the Olympics on Boston Common.
The "New York" game had become so popular that clubs were formed in every locality. It was seen then, that in order to give solidity to it, a controlling body was necessary. This was done in May, 1857, in New York City, when a convention of players was held and rules for the season adopted. That year the Trimountains of Boston was organized and was the first of the New England clubs to play the New York game.
In 1858 another convention was held in New York, and here the National Association of Baseball Players came into existence. The first annual meeting was held in Cooper Institute, March 9, 1859, when many practical suggestions and a revision of the rules were effected.
In New England there was the "Massachusetts Association of Baseball Players," which met at Dedham, Massachusetts, May 13, 1858, when a set of rules was adopted differing somewhat from those in vogue in the "New York" game.
The rules required that the ball was not to weigh less than two nor more than two and three-quarter ounces, nor measure less than six and one-half nor more than eight and one-half inches in circumference. It was composed of woolen yarn and strips of rubber wound tightly and covered with buck or calf skin. The bat was round—not more than two and one-half inches in diameter—and could be of any length to suit the striker.
There was no diamond marked out. The infield was a square, each side being sixty feet long. The thrower, as the pitcher was called, stood in the center of the square, facing the batsman, who stood in a space four feet in diameter, equidistant from the first to the fourth corners of the square.