About America's First Baseball Game
Recognized as the first official baseball game that was ever played
The Elysian Fields Historical Marker in Hoboken, New Jersey is currently placed where the first organized baseball game in history was played. Also, the four corners on 11th and Washington streets each proudly bear four bases that mark 1st, 2nd, 3rd and home plate, where Elysian Fields once proudly stood.
The Hoboken Historical Museum recognizes the game as the first recorded baseball match. The State of New Jersey describes the game as the first baseball game. The Metropolitan Museum of Art defines the game as the first recorded, organized baseball game. Steven Institute Of Technology acknowledges it as the first recorded modern baseball game.
On June 19, 1846, this first ever baseball game was officially played on Elysian Fields between the Knickerbockers and the New Yorks. Alexander Cartwright (1820-1892) of New York invented the modern baseball field in 1845. He and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club devised the first rules and regulations that were accepted for the modern game of baseball.
Alexander Cartwright is considered the "Father of Modern Baseball" because he led the way for developing the basic rules of the game as we now know it. Cartwright was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.
The rules of baseball were still evolving at the time, and the game that was played was different from modern baseball. Cartwright wrote down the rules for the new game that resembled Cricket or the children's game Rounders. He called this game Base Ball. It is generally conceded that until this time, the game was not seriously regarded.
The game was played with four bases, arranged in a diamond shape, and the pitcher threw the ball underhand to the batter. The ball was caught without gloves and players could be put out by either catching a fly ball or hitting a runner with the ball.
The "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers 23–1 in four innings. Most of the New York Nine's players were originally Knickerbockers who did not like to travel to Hoboken for practice. Alexander Cartwright was the umpire for the game.
The Knickerbocker Club went on to become one of the most important teams in the early history of baseball and their innovations helped to shape the modern game of baseball.
Elysian Fields was the site of countless baseball matches between amateur clubs based in New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn in the pre-professional era of the 1830s to the 1870s. Cricket matches were also popular at the grounds, and the New York Yacht Club established its first clubhouse at the Fields.
Although there has been much debate, it has been agreed upon that the first organized, official baseball game was, indeed, played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in previously in 1845, the contest at Elysian Fields is now recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history.
With the Knickerbocker code as the basis of the game, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century. The game was significant in the history of baseball because it established many of the basic rules and principles that would come to define the sport.
In 1831 the Stevenses family expanded and upgraded their popular pleasure grounds. This is when they began using the name "Elysian Fields" after the paradise of classical mythology where earthly heroes somehow spent a blissful eternity". The wooded section north of the Castle Point site of the Stevenses' Italianate villa was cleared and landscaped for baseball games to be played.
Hoboken thus became one of the most significant hot spots in the early growth of the National Pastime. Eventually with the construction of major baseball parks in Brooklyn in the late 1860s, the popularity of Elysian Fields began to wane.
The last professional game played at Elysian Fields took place in 1873. In 2012, the Hoboken Historical Museum encouraged a group of dedicated amateur baseball and softball players to form a vintage baseball club, now called the 1859 Hoboken Base Ball Club. They play other vintage baseball clubs from the area from April through October.
Today, Elysian Park is a small park that is the last remnant of the much larger and historic Elysian Fields. It is currently bounded on the west by Hudson Street, and the north and east by Sinatra Drive, Elysian Park has two play areas, a basketball court, a sprinkler, a dog run and rest rooms. The northern end of prestigious Castle Point Terrace ends at the park.
