By Peter Zablocki

Today, Maxwell Place in Hoboken is the epitome of luxurious living with condominiums and townhomes overlooking the New York skyline. Some may even remember it being the Maxwell House Coffee plant site throughout the twentieth century. Still, the location’s roots are even more profound than that. For buried well below the brick buildings is the Elysian Fields park – the site of the first-ever organized baseball game in the United States, played on June 19, 1846.

The myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball and first played it in Cooperstown, New York, has long been discredited. It was a brainchild of a special commission established in 1903 to research the sport’s origins and based on a testimony of an older man – and friend of Abner’s – who claimed to have seen Doubleday make up the rules and play the game sixty years before. Ironically, the so-called founder never admitted to doing so. In fact, at the time of the said occurrence, Doubleday was present at West Point Academy and nowhere near Cooperstown.

It is still a major point of contention for baseball enthusiasts, considering that it makes the Baseball Hall of Fame’s location in New York State based solely on unproven hearsay. For a precise, albeit more controversial origin of America’s past, one should look no further than Hoboken, New Jersey.

In the 1840s, thousands of New Yorkers rode the ferryboats to Hoboken each Sunday. Their destination was often the famed Elysian Fields, which provided a peaceful sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the nearby metropolis. The visitors enjoyed the five-acre paradise’s cafes, strolls through the flower-booming gardens, and cricket matches. It was also where a twenty-five-year-old New York volunteer fireman and banker, Alexander Cartwright, would spend his days playing “town ball” – an Americanized street version of the British game of rounders. More akin to dodgeball, the game would see players try not to get hit with the ball thrown directly at them to get them out on their way to secure bases (laid out in a square), all while the men on the field would fight to catch the ball off the bat (with the batter standing between home and first base) through a free-for-all melee.

In 1845, Cartwright decided to organize his buddies into a baseball club. Named the New York Knickerbockers after his firehouse and made up of other members of higher social standing, Cartwright’s club adopted new regulations to make the game more entertaining, safer, and quicker. Approved by club members on September 23, 1845, Alexander’s rules saw the square turned into a diamond, the batter staying at home, and bases placed ninety feet apart. The game now also had three outfielders, foul and safe lines, and a new position of shortstop, all while deciding on three outs instead of letting the entire lineup bat before switching. The Knickerbockers liked to play with these rules so much that they would visit Hoboken’s Elysian Fields during the week instead of just Sundays. And while they always played intrasquad games, they soon began calling themselves world champions which did not sit well with other “town ball” baseball clubs.

On June 19, 1846, known as “the day baseball was born,” the Elysian field hosted the first prearranged baseball game between two organized clubs and playing by Cartwright’s rules, the Knickerbockers and the previously “town ball-playing” the New York Nines. No questioning of the umpire was allowed since the players considered themselves gentlemen. Proof of their social status, a historian would write, was that they could play baseball on Monday and Thursday afternoons at a time when Paterson mill workers were beginning the second half of their long day. With no real equipment apart from a bat (no baseball glove yet), the clubs agreed to play for honor and to test Cartwright’s rules. The winner would keep the ball as a trophy.

The New York Nines got the hang of the new rules rather quickly, which made it a fun afternoon for the various onlookers who came to watch the game. In a twist of fate, the Nines pummeled the Knickerbockers 23 to 1 and went home with the baseball in hand. Still, the Knickerbockers would go on to dominate baseball until clubs began playing for money in the 1870s, by then with Cartwright’s rules becoming the standard around the country and the world.

And so, although thought up by a New Yorker in New York, the game of baseball as we know was first played in an organized matter in our home state of New Jersey on June 19, 1846,  thus making it the birthplace of the sport – well, potentially, maybe… it sure depends on how one looks at it.

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Peter Zablocki is the co-host of the History Teachers Talking Podcast. For more information, visit www.peterzablocki.com