Page "History of baseball in the United States" Paragraph 5

The first team to play baseball under modern rules were 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 members, led by Alexander Cartwright, 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, similar 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.