The First Baseball Game

June 19, 1846

Alexander Cartwright was a bookseller and volunteer firefighter in Manhattan. He led the establishment of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club (after the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company) in 1842. The Knickerbockers played a brand of stick-and-ball game called town ball on a field at 47th Avenue and 27th Streets.^[1]
In 1845 Cartwright and a committee from his club drew up rules converting this playground game into a more elaborate and interesting sport to be played by adults. The first clearly documented match between two baseball clubs under these rules took place on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. In this match, the Knickerbockers lost to the "New York Nine" by a score of 23 to 1.