New York Knickerbockers (baseball)

The New York Knickerbockers were one of the first organized baseball teams which played under a set of rules similar to the game today. The team was founded by Alexander Cartwright, considered one of the original developers of modern baseball. In 1851, the New York Knickerbockers wore the first ever recorded baseball uniforms.

While a member of Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12 of the New York City Fire Department, Alexander Joy Cartwright became involved in playing town ball (a similar game to baseball, and an older one) on a vacant lot in Manhattan. In 1845, the lot became unavailable for use, and the group was forced to look for another location. They found a playing field, the Elysian Fields, a large tree-filled parkland across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey run by Colonel John Stevens, which charged $75 a year to rent. In order to pay the rental fees, Cartwright organized a ball club so that he could collect the needed money. The club was named the "Knickerbockers", in honor of the fire company where Cartwright was a member. The Knickerbockers club was organized on September 23, 1845. The first officers were Duncan F. Curry, president, William R. Wheaton, vice-president, and William H. Tucker, secretary-treasurer.

Creating a club for the ball players called for a formal set of rules for each member to adhere to, foremost among them to "have the reputation of a gentleman". Wheaton and Tucker formalized the Knickerbocker Rules, a set of twenty rules for the team:

It is likely that Wheaton picked some of his twenty rules based upon his previous experience in town ball play in Manhattan. According to his own account some fifty years later, his written rules for the Gotham Base Ball Club in 1837 eliminated "plugging" the runner and laid out the infield as a regular diamond. The twenty rules differed in several respects from other early versions of baseball and from rounders, the English game commonly considered the closest relative of baseball. "Two of these rules — the one that abolished soaking [putting a runner out by hitting him with a thrown ball] and the one that designated a foul as a do-over — were revolutionary, while the others gave the game a new degree of uniformity."

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