Posted By:
Corey R. ShanusIn my view the Olympics claim to fame has nothing to do with them being America's first baseball team but instead has to do with them being America's first formally organized sports club (the Knickerbockers being the second). Yes they played a game with bats, balls and "safe havens", but the exact form of that game, the rules they played under and even if they had one uniform set of rules to this day is not authoritatively known. Their constitution, besides not even mentioning the term "baseball", makes no mention of the rules they played under. In contrast the Knickerbocker constitution specifically lists the precise rules they were to play by (nine players to a side, 3 outs to an inning, a set batting order, 42 paces (90 feet) between the bases, fair and foul territory, etc.) and call their game baseball. And those Knickerbocker rules for all practical purposes survive today and define how today's game is played. Therefore, a book discussing the origins of baseball, not regarding what the Olympics played as being significantly different (or indeed at all different) from what already existed, would not necessarily find reason to regard them as significant from a baseball origination perspective.