Origin

• Bat and ball games have been in existence for the entirety of human history. The game of baseball is often traced directly to English cricket, but the game of rounders (which also had its roots in cricket) is the game that eventually became baseball. Rounders is a bat and ball game that includes baseball elements such as innings, bases and the basic baseball positions.
  
  

19th Century

• In the late summer of 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a shipping clerk who enjoyed playing bat and ball games, formalized the rules of baseball and created the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. This club was a gathering of people that got together with the intent of playing ball with and against each other. In 1871, the first baseball league--the National Association was formed. It was only around for five years, but from its ashes rose the National League.
  
  

World Series

• A handful of other baseball leagues appeared throughout the years, but in the beginning of the 20th century, only one challenged the National League for baseball supremacy: the American League. The beginning of the modern era of baseball was the advent of the World Series. In 1903, the best team from the American League, the Boston Pilgrims (eventually renamed the Boston Red Sox) played the best team from the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pilgrims won in eight games--the first World Series was a best-of-nine-games series. A dispute arose the following year, and no World Series was held. Starting in 1905, a World Series has been played every year with the exception of 1994, when the strike canceled it.
  
  

The Last 100 Years

• The game off baseball has changed drastically over the past 100 years. The game has gone through periods of pitching dominance and periods of hitting dominance. Ballparks have become significantly smaller--it was not uncommon for older ballparks' fences to be more than 500 feet from home plate. The pitching mound has been lowered to make the game more fair for the hitters. The science of sports has revolutionized not only the way the game is played, but also the way that players prepare and take care of their bodies. Instant replay began to be used for home run calls during the 2008 MLB season.
  
  

Stars

• The main reason for the success of baseball was and still is its stars. Early stars included players like Ty Cobb, Christie Mathewson and Cy Young, but it was not until the charismatic Babe Ruth gained fame that baseball had its first real superstar. Babe Ruth became an American hero for his revolutionary style of play. He popularize baseball with the barnstorming tours (tours in which major league players would travel the globe playing exhibition games) that were based around him. From Mickey Mantle to Ted Williams, from Stan Musial to Reggie Jackson, from Jackie Robinson to Albert Pujols, baseball has been built around its stars.
  
  

World Baseball

• After the barnstormer tours, baseball began to become popular in several countries around the world. Quality leagues began to appear in Japan, the Dominican Republic, Korea and other areas, and soon MLB began to see an influx of international stars, particularly from Latin American and, more recently, Japan and Korea. In 2006, the World Baseball Classic was first played. This was a "real" world series in which teams from all over the world would vie for the title of best in the world. Japan won in both 2006 and 2009.