Backyard League Gaming Baseball REVIEW | MacSources

Turn Practice Time Into Game Time!

Is there anything more American than baseball? Even though many credit Abner Doubleday as the founder of the game, history.com and NBC Sports (https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2020/04/02/today-in-baseball-history-a-lie-about-how-baseball-was-invented-is-born/) provided a more accurate origin story for the American pastime. It was thought to have originated from a merger of children’s game called Rounders, and the very British game of Cricket, which were played throughout schoolyards and college campuses until the Knickerbocker Baseball Club played the first official game in 1846. The rest is history. However fascinating the game history may be, the evolution of the ball merits discussion as well.

An article from the Smithsonian detailed the origins of the clean white ball with vibrant red stitching that we know today ( https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-brief-history-of-the-baseball-3685086/). I was unaware that early pitchers made their own version of baseballs, that cobblers lined them with broken rubber from shoes and wound them with yarn, or that some chose to use sturgeon eyes. With all of the variations, it wasn’t easy to compare location to location. Interestingly, there was variability and strategy in ball selection at that time. To standardize the sport, the 5.5–6 ounces by 9–9.25 inches diameter ball with 108 stitches (MLB rule 1.09) originated in the 1870s, and has changed little since that time. The final version of the ball…