1889: The Year Baseball went International and New York City Became the Center of the World: Al Spalding's Tour and the First Subway Series
On February 9, 1889 in front of a crowd of 1200 bemused bedouins, none of whom had any idea what the Hell they were watching--in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza and beneath the gaze of the sphinx--the Chicago White Stockings and a team of professional all stars called the All Americans played a baseball game amidst the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert. This was part of Albert G. Spalding’s World Tour of Baseball which had begun in October of the previous year and would stretch into April, nearly until opening day, of the 1889 professional baseball season. The World Tour included stops in Australia, Hawaii where baseball was played before half-naked natives and their indigenous king, England where games were watched by an aging Queen Victoria, Ceylon modern day Sri Lanka in front of groups of Buddhist monks, and Italy where baseball games were played by American major leaguers before papal emissaries outside of the Vatican in the shadow of the Roman Colosseum....