One theory is that the game originated from the medieval Romanian game Oina. Baseball (and softball), as well as the other modern bat, ball and running games, cricket and rounders, developed from earlier folk games. ... Few details of how the modern games developed from earlier folk games are known.

Is baseball older than cricket?

The only certain thing is that cricket is much older than baseball, and that cricket was very popular in colonial America and the early United States, fading only with the explosive popularity of New York baseball after the Civil War.

Did baseball develop from cricket?

Most cricketers have heard that baseball developed out of an early form of cricket (called "rounders"). ... The game of rounders, an earlier form of cricket which seems to have been favored by the Irish, as well as by English children in the 16th century, became the game of choice among the youth.