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davidcyclebackI don't know the start, but I was aware of the old timers like Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson when I was a kid. My maternal grandfather grew up near Detroit and when I was a kid told me he saw Ty Cobb and visiting Babe Ruth play-- and when he told me that I knew who were Cobb and Ruth.
Baseball is a game tied to and appreciative of its history. If you closely follow and play the modern game as a kid you will come into contact with the old players and stories, from Jackie Robinson to Christy Mathewson. Today's football fan kids might have little to no idea who is Sammy Baugh or Don Hutson, but any young baseball fan knows who is Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. In a blabbermouth, obnoxious special effects-laded Fox Sports or ESPN baseball game coverage, the announcers will mention Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams with frequency. Don Hutson, Red Grange and (excluding the time of his recent death) Sammy Baugh are almost never mentioned during a Fox Sports or ESPN football game. That says it all about baseball versus football.
A key to the baseball history fascination is that, unlike football, the game today is largely the same as the game in 1910 or 1930. You can easily imagine plugging Christy Mathewson into today's Texas Rangers' lineup, or Jim Thome into the 1935 Philadelphia Athletics. With training for the modern game, could Walter Johnson or Ty Cobb play in today's MLB? I would think so. And would Nolan Ryan fit cleanly into a 1909 dead ball rotation? No doubt. All you have to do is put a 1935 uniform on 1977 George Brett and stick him in the next game. 1909 and 2008 football are different games.