Evolution of the game that became modern baseball is unknown before 1845. ... One, mostly English, asserted that baseball evolved from a game of English origin (probably rounders); the other, almost entirely American, said that baseball was an American invention (perhaps derived from the game of one ol' cat).

Is baseball derived from rounders?

Its most direct ancestors appear to be two English games: rounders (a children's game brought to New England by the earliest colonists) and cricket. ... In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, beginning a new, uniquely American tradition.

Which came first baseball or rounders?

Although rounders is assumed to be older than baseball, literary references to early forms of 'base-ball' in England pre-date use of the term rounders.