When was baseball invented? Why isn’t it played in the Olympics?
According to an old legend, a military cadet named Abner Doubleday drew up the rules for “America’s Pastime” in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839. Doubleday’s contribution has been largely discredited, though, especially after someone discovered that he wasn’t even in Cooperstown that year.
Instead, Alexander Cartwright of New York is now credited with inventing the modern version of the game in 1845 and fielding one of the first true baseball teams, the New York Knickerbockers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938, and many of his original rules still stand today, including the distance between bases (90 feet) and the number of bases (four).
Baseball is indeed played in the Summer Olympics, where it has been a full medal sport since 1992, according to the International Olympic Committee. USA Baseball spokesperson David Fanucchi believes that, internationally, the game has been growing in both talent and its number of fans. “For a long time, it was mostly America, Cuba and Japan that had the top players, but now you can go to other countries such as the Netherlands or Italy or Korea,” he says. “China’s developing an excellent baseball program for participation in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. We believe that baseball will be a very popular sport in any Olympic Games as we move forward.”
But baseball isn’t the only Olympic sport involving a bat: Softball entered the games in 1996. The U.S. women’s team brought home the gold medal in its inaugural year and in 2004.