What is History of baseball in the United States?
[[Image:1896 Baltimore Orioles.jpg|thumb|right|300px|National League [[Baltimore Orioles (19th century)|Baltimore Orioles]], 1896]] The '''history of baseball in the United States''' can be traced to the [[19th century]]. This is when [[amateur]]s played a [[baseball]]-like game by their own [[informal]] [[rule]]s using [[wikt:equipment|equipment]] they made themselves. The [[popularity]] of the sport inspired the [[wikt:semi|semi]]-[[wikt:pro|pro]] [[national]] [[Baseball|baseball clubs]] in the 1860s. ==Early history== The earliest known mention of [[baseball]] in the [[United States]] was a 1791 [[Pittsfield, Massachusetts]], [[law]] banning the playing of the game within {{convert|80|yd|m}} of the town meeting house.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of Baseball|work=baseball.isport.com|publisher=iSport|url=http://baseball.isport.com/baseball-history/|access-date=October 15, 2010|archive-date=August 12, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812063645/http://baseball.isport.com/baseball-history/|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1903, the [[British]] sportswriter [[Henry Chadwick (journalist)|Henry Chadwick]] wrote an article saying that baseball came from a British game called [[rounders]]. A game which Chadwick had played as a boy in [[England]]. But baseball [[Manager|executive]] [[Albert Spalding]] disagreed. Baseball, said Spalding, was [[basic]]ally an [[United States|American]] sport and began in America. To decide they agreed to let [[Abraham G. Mills]] settle the question by heading a [[wikt:commission|commission]]. After three years they found that [[Abner Doubleday]] had invented the national pastime. In 2004, baseball historian John Thorn discovered the 1791 town ordinance, putting Pittsfield's connection to baseball 48 years before Abner Doubleday accepted invention of the game in 1839 in [[Cooperstown, New York]]. This is where the [[National Baseball Hall of Fame]] now stands. The Hall of Fame recognized the ordinance as the first known reference to the game and honored the town with a plaqu