Early baseball cards were put inside packs of cicarettes and skinny cigars as premiums, an incentive to buy the product. So I guess it was the adult version of kids finding the prize in a box of Cracker Jack. Even CJ got in on it in 1914 & 1915 when small cards were the prize. The tobacco cards of 1887 & 1888 were the beginning of the popularity of cards but not the actual beginning. There were a couple of cards produced in 1800-that's right 1800- that depicted, oddly enough, women enjoying some kind of 'ball' game. A few cards of ballplaying were produced up until the 1860's when more cards were made. In 1869 Peck & Snyder made a couple of cards showing the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The Cincy ballclub were true professionals, going around the country beating the crap out of everybody.
The beginning of the game of baseball itself is somewhat cloaked in mystery. No, Abner Doubleday did not invent the game. But he sure promoted the heck out of it and made it very popular. There are photos that show Civil War troops having a game of baseball, circa 1864, but the game goes back further than that. There are articles and a few illustrations describing the game in 1839 publications. Back then it was sort of a hybrid, a mix of crickett and baseball. Somewhere along the way Americans decided on a third 'War' of sorts against the British and tossed out ("Yer outta here!) the weird crickett rules, evolving into the game that we know today.
Have fun collecting!
