Town Team Baseball Minnesota's new Major League Baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, in 1961. Since the minimum number of players required to field a team for a single game with no substitutions is nine, then at least 7191 (and in actuality a much larger number) individuals participated in Minnesota townball in the peak year, 1950. Historically, Townball teams in Minnesota were divided into three classes: AA, A, and B. In Class AA leagues, teams were permitted three players from outside the local area, and salaries were unlimited; essentially, whatever the team's owners or shareholders could afford, they could pay. Because the unrestrained competition
Origins of baseball as in baseball. When Englishmen came to America, they brought stoolball with them. William Bradford in his diary for Christmas Day, 1621, noted (with disapproval) how the men of Plymouth were "frolicking in þe street, at play openly; some pitching þe barre, some at stoole-ball and shuch-like sport". Because of the different versions of stoolball, and because it was played not only in England, but also in colonial America, stoolball is considered by many to have been the basis of not only cricket, but both baseball and rounders as well. Another early folk game was "dog and cat" (or "cat