<P> The first team to play baseball under modern rules was long believed to be the New York Knickerbockers . The club was founded on September 23 , 1845 , as a social club for the upper middle classes of New York City , and was strictly amateur until it disbanded . The club 's by - laws committee , which included William R. Wheaton and William H. Tucker , formulated the Knickerbocker Rules , which in large part dealt with organizational matters but which also laid out rules for playing the game . One of the significant rules prohibited soaking or plugging the runner ; under older rules , a fielder could put a runner out by hitting the runner with the thrown ball , similarly to the common schoolyard game of kickball . The Knickerbocker Rules required fielders to tag or force the runner , as is done today , and avoided a lot of the arguments and fistfights that resulted from the earlier practice . A recently discovered newspaper interview with Wheaton indicates that the rules he and Tucker wrote for the Knickerbockers in most respects duplicated the rules he had written for the Gotham Club in 1837 ; the Knickerbockers were founded as a breakaway group of former Gothams . </P>
<P> The first team to play baseball under modern rules was long believed to be the New York Knickerbockers . The club was founded on September 23 , 1845 , as a social club for the upper middle classes of New York City , and was strictly amateur until it disbanded . The club 's by - laws committee , which included William R. Wheaton and William H. Tucker , formulated the Knickerbocker Rules , which in large part dealt with organizational matters but which also laid out rules for playing the game . One of the significant rules prohibited soaking or plugging the runner ; under older rules , a fielder could put a runner out by hitting the runner with the thrown ball , similarly to the common schoolyard game of kickball . The Knickerbocker Rules required fielders to tag or force the runner , as is done today , and avoided a lot of the arguments and fistfights that resulted from the earlier practice . A recently discovered newspaper interview with Wheaton indicates that the rules he and Tucker wrote for the Knickerbockers in most respects duplicated the rules he had written for the Gotham Club in 1837 ; the Knickerbockers were founded as a breakaway group of former Gothams . </P>
who played in the first baseball game ever
who played in the first baseball game ever
New York Knickerbockers
New York Knickerbockers