For a long time, the invention of the game of baseball was attributed to Abner Doubleday. In 1905, a commission wrongly credited Doubleday with inventing the game in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. Doubleday, who grew up in Cooperstown and attended West Point, eventually become a well-known General. When he died, he left behind numerous diaries. In them, he NEVER claimed to have invented American baseball.
But more careful research has shown...
Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. A man named Alexander Cartwright designed the modern baseball field (commonly known as a baseball diamond) in 1845. It was he and the members of his Ball Club who devised the first official rules and regulations for the modern game of baseball.
The first recorded baseball game happened in 1846, when Alexander Cartwright's Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club. The game was held at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey.
The first organized baseball league was formed in 1858.