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Baseball · Level 9: Master · Sub-level 9.1

Origins

10 tests · 100 facts · updated 28 October 2026 · markdown

Bat-and-ball ancestors, the Doubleday myth, the Knickerbocker rules, the amateur clubs, how the game spread, the first professional team, the first leagues, early gear and pitching, the rules taking shape, and the stars of the 19th century.

Each test below is ten questions on Insporta. The list under a test is what the questions check: one fact per question, with the source it was written from. Read it before the test, or come back from a wrong answer.

Test 1Bat-and-ball ancestorsTake a test

  1. Rounders shares the bat, the pitched ball and the circuit of bases.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. A Little Pretty Pocket-Book has a short rhyme called 'Base-Ball'.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Many American clubs played cricket before baseball took over.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Town ball had loose local rules, with runners going round bases or posts.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. Rounders players run round a circuit of posts.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. The town wanted to protect the windows of its new meeting house.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. The game took shape slowly from many local bat-and-ball games.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. Medieval stoolball, the 1744 rhyme, then the 1845 club rules.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. Play came first, then clubs, then rules on paper.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. Hitting a runner with the ball was a common way to get him out in early games.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 2The Doubleday mythTake a test

  1. He aimed the first Union gun fired back at Fort Sumter in 1861.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. It was asked to settle where the game came from.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Spalding wanted an American story for the national game.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Chadwick's view is much closer to what historians now think.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. The report placed the 'invention' in a small New York village.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. Graves recalled boyhood memories of Doubleday; nothing else backed them.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. He was a cadet at the military academy at the time.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. 1839, 1907, then 1939, the claimed centennial.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. The single letter became the report's answer.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. Doubleday Field in Cooperstown keeps the old story's name.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 3The Knickerbocker rulesTake a test

  1. The club's members were young New York clerks and merchants.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. Later research shows a committee wrote them, but his name stuck.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Runners had to be tagged or forced instead.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. The rule-writers lost heavily in that first recorded game.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. The first side to 21 aces won; innings came later.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. Foul ground took away the space behind the batter.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. This 'bound rule' lasted for fair balls until the 1860s.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. 1845, 1846, then 1857.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. An underhand toss and the bound catch were both part of the game then.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. The Knickerbockers took the ferry from Manhattan to play in New Jersey.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 4Clubs and conventionsTake a test

  1. Nine innings has been the length of a game ever since.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. It set the rules for its member clubs.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. The New York game won out after the Civil War.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Spectators were charged admission for a baseball match.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. His speed and spin made him the first famous pitcher.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. The space between bases has hardly changed since.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. Their matches drew big crowds before professional leagues.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. 1857, 1858, then 1862.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. Early matches were social events with a meal afterwards.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. William Cammeyer fenced the Union Grounds and charged admission.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 5Baseball spreads across AmericaTake a test

  1. Hundreds of new clubs joined the national association.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. Union prisoners played baseball inside the Confederate camp.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Teams could travel to play clubs in other cities.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Their trip took them as far as Chicago and St. Louis.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. It was the only defeat of the tour and made his name.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. Wire reports helped clubs in one city follow rivals in another.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. The phrase was already in print before the professional leagues.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. The 1840s, the war of the 1860s, then the post-war tours.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. This is how the New York game reached small towns.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. Soldiers from New York taught the game to men from other states.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 6The first professional teamTake a test

  1. They were the first openly all-professional team.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. The English-born former cricketer built the team.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. The shortstop earned about $1,400 that season.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. They went through the season unbeaten, with one tie.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. The Atlantics won 8-7 in eleven innings.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. The coast-to-coast line had been completed that spring.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. Knickers showed off the team's coloured stockings.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. 1869, 1869, 1870, then 1871.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. Money came first, then contracts, then a touring team.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. The red stockings gave the team, and later the Reds, their name.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 7The first leaguesTake a test

  1. Its full name was the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. Harry Wright moved his best players to Boston.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Hulbert wanted a league run by the clubs, not the players.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Owners wanted to stop gambling, broken schedules and weak clubs.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. Cheap seats helped it attract working-class fans.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. It lasted one season.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. Spalding pitched and managed them to the title.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. 1871, 1876, 1882, then 1890.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. The NL still runs; the AA lasted ten seasons; the Players' League one.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. The National League banned both, so the new league offered them.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 8Early gear and pitchingTake a test

  1. Gloves were seen as unmanly at first.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. He wore a thin, flesh-coloured glove to avoid notice.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Sidearm came in 1883 and overhand the year after.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Hard-throwing pitchers had pushed batting averages down.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. Pitchers had to keep a foot on the slab.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. The pitcher had to throw to the zone the batter asked for.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. The flat side was meant for bunting; round bats became the rule.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. The distance moved back in 1881 and again in 1893.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. The arm angle rose step by step in the 1880s.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. Early gloves only padded the palm against hard throws.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 9The rules take shapeTake a test

  1. The number fell step by step during the 1880s.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. Four balls has been the walk ever since.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. Baseball went back to three strikes in 1888.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. A fair ball now had to be caught on the fly.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. Batters who would not swing could now be struck out.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. Free substitution came in 1891.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. The National League followed in 1887.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. The count came down through the 1880s.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. 1864, 1889, then 1901 in the National League.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. The National League counted fouls as strikes from 1901; the American League from 1903.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Test 10Stars of the 19th centuryTake a test

  1. He played 27 seasons as a professional.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  2. The sale made him the '$10,000 Beauty'.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  3. He won 59 games that year.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  4. Hitting was high after the pitcher moved back in 1893.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  5. Ernest Thayer's poem first ran in a San Francisco newspaper.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  6. He pitched for the Cleveland Spiders.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  7. He fought the reserve clause that tied players to clubs.

    Source: General baseball reference · recall

  8. Anson began in 1871, Kelly in 1878, Young in 1890.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  9. The crowd's hope ends with the famous strikeout.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

  10. 'Slide, Kelly, Slide' was a hit song of 1889.

    Source: General baseball reference · applied

Sources

General baseball references, WBSC and league material, coaching manuals; original questions authored, nothing reproduced. Numbered rules belong to the Rules category.

  • General baseball reference100