Baseball is one of, if not
the most, popular sports in the
United States today. This is probably because many people believe that this game was completely made and
popularized in the US alone. For the most part, they are correct. However, we can trace a
primitive baseball's routes back almost over 2000 years ago. So baseball is, in fact, not
100% American.
Some of the earliest developed cultures, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, had games including a ball and bat, as baseball does. These early civilizations used these sports for recreation, and for special ceremonies. These games stayed popular and were even further spread throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. During this time many more variations of the sport were developed, as well. But Europeans mainly thought that these bat and ball games were just for children. After Europeans brought bat and ball games, most notably "cricket" and "rounders", to American colonies in the 1600s, this idea started to change. Already by the early 1800s many of the games Europeans brought to North America were becoming widely popular. These games were especially in the famous baseball cities of today, such as New York and Boston. The most popular stick and ball game there at the time was the British game of cricket, which is still popular in countries such as England, India, and parts of Africa. However, the sport that looked the most like modern baseball was called "rounders". In rounders, players must hit a ball with a bat and run bases like in baseball. The only main differences between this sport and modern day baseball are the foul lines, some rulings on "outs" and the fact that in rounders you were able to peg a runner with the ball for an out, like in kickball. Rounders was sometimes called "o' cat", "town ball", and "base ball". This is obviously the sports ancestor that bears the most resemblance to baseball.
So the new baseball was created, and it was extremely popular through out most of the United States and Canada. The only problem was that it lacked regulation. Everybody played by different rulings. Some people left in old elements of rounders or even cricket. There could be no organization in a game where there is no regulation. So, in 1845, a base ball club called the Knickerbockers met and came up with a basic "baseball government" frame. The Knickerbockers established the number and distance of bases, the placement of foul lines, and the practice of tagging instead of pegging. This game became an instant hit. And the following American Civil War was actually good for baseball. The new sport was spread all about our great country.
By that time, baseball was ready to be called America's national pastime. Still, many different cultures have a little bit of credit to claim for it.