10 truly groundbreaking sports firsts that shaped America and beyond
Long before they became institutions, America’s favorite games were experiments — new leagues, new tournaments, new ideas.These 10 firsts laid the foundation for the sports that drive us to eat, sleep and breathe our fandom.Baseball was America’s most popular professional team sport by the 1870s, but plagued by folding franchises, disputed contracts and inconsistent schedules.
The National League, launched in 1876, was designed to impose stability. Multiple contests were played on Opening Day, Apr.22, though the Boston Red Caps’ 6-5 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics is most commonly cited as the first game in modern major-league history.
When the rival American League arrived in 1901, the two circuits eventually joined forces, contesting the first World Series in 1903 and forming the foundation of today’s Major League Baseball.The Newport Casino in Rhode Island played host to the first US National Championship, renamed the US Open in 1968. Twenty-five men competed in the tournament, with their play accompanied by a string quartet.Atop the grass courts — today the site of the International Tennis Hall of Fame — Richard Sears, a 19-year-old Harvard student, staked his claim as the first ever Singles champion.
Sears would go on to win the tournament every year through 1887, for a total of 18 straight matches.For his victory in the inaugural US Open, Englishman Horace Rawlins, 21, received a gold medal and $150. The tournament was held Oct.4, 1895, on the nine-hole course of the Newport Golf Club in Rhode Island, where competitors played four rounds in a single day.
Rawlins, employed by the club as an assistant professional, shot 173 to beat fellow Brit Willie Dunn by two strokes.Of the 10 golfers to compete, just one, Canadian Andrew Smith, hailed from outside the United Kingdom.
The following year, John Shippen became the first American to play in the tournament.The National Football League traces its origins to Triangle Park, a stretch of...