Growth
Before the Civil War, baseball competed for public interest with cricket and regional variants of baseball, notably town ball played in Philadelphia and the Massachusetts Game played in New England. In the 1860s, aided by the War, "New York" style baseball expanded into a national game, as its first governing body, The National Association of Base Ball Players was formed. The NABBP soon expanded into a true national organization, although most of the strongest clubs remained those based in the northeastern part of the country. In its 12-year history as an amateur league, the Brooklyn Atlantics won seven championships, establishing themselves as the first true dynasty in the sport, although, the New York Mutuals were widely considered to be one of the best teams of the era as well.
By the end of 1865, almost 100 clubs were members of the NABBP. By 1867, it ballooned to over 400 members, including some clubs from as far away as San Francisco and Louisiana. One of these clubs, the Chicago White Stockings, won the championship in 1870. Today known as the Chicago Cubs, they are the oldest team in American organized sports. Because of this growth, regional and state organizations began to assume a more prominent role in the governance of the sport.
Read more about this topic: History Of Baseball In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word growth:
“Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is the natural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)