develop into the
present vast system of organized base-ball. They were guilty of no
crafty changes of any foreign game; there was no incentive for that.
They recorded the rules of the game as they remembered them from boyhood
and as they found them in vogue at that time. For six years the club
played regularly at the Elysian Field, the two nines being made up from
all the members present. From 1851 other clubs began to be organized,
and we find the Washington, Gotham (into which the Washington was
merged), Eagle, Empire, Putnam, Baltic, Union, Mutual, Excelsior,
Atlantic, Eckford, and many other clubs following in the space of a few
years.

In Philadelphia town-ball was the favorite pastime and kept out base-
ball for some time, while in Boston the local "New England game," as
played by the Olympic, Elm Tree, and Green Mountain Clubs, deferred the
introduction of base-ball, or, as it was called, "the New York game,"
until 1857.

Base-ball grew rapidly in favor; the field was ripe. America needed a
live out-door sport, and this game exactly suited the national
temperament. It required all the manly qualities of activity, endurance,
pluck, and skill peculiar to cricket, and was immeasurably superior to
that game in exciting features. There were dash, spirit, and variety,
and it required only a couple of hours to play a game. Developed by
American brains, it was flaw to us, and we took to it with all the
enthusiasm peculiar to our nature.

In 1857 a convention of delegates from sixteen clubs located in and
around New York and Brooklyn was held, and a uniform set of rules drawn
up to govern the play of all the clubs.

In 1858 a second general convention was held, at which twenty-five clubs
were represented. A committee was appointed to formulate a Constitution
and By-laws for a permanent organization, and in accordance with this
"The National Association of Baseball Players" was duly organized. The
game now made rapid strides. It was no boys' sport, for no one under
twenty-one years of age could be a delegate. Each year a committee of
men having a practical knowledge of the game revised the playing rules,
so that these were always kept abreast of the time.

During 1858 a series of three games between picked nines from New York
and Brooklyn was played on the Fashion Course, Long Island. The public
interest in these games was very great and the local feeling ran high.
The series, which terminated in favor of New York, t