The founding document of Major League Baseball:
one of two known copies

(BASEBALL)  Constitution and Playing Rules of the National League.  Philadelphia: Reach & Johnston, 1876.  Octavo, original printed wrappers, 48 pp, (10.5 x 16 cm).  Fine condition. $75,000.

From page 41 of the Constitution:

“It was agreed by and between all the clubs, members of the League, that all existing contracts between them (the League clubs) and players should be recognized by the League as if made under and according to the requirements of the Constitution of the “National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs.”

On motion, it was resolved that the first annual meeting of this League should be held at Cleveland, Ohio, on the date called for in the Constitution.

The Secretary was instructed to send twenty-five copies of the Constitution and Playing Rules to each member of the League, when printed.”  –M.G. Bulkeley, President; Harry Wright, Secretary, pro tem.

“By the authority vested in me by virtue of the above resolution, I hereby certify that Messrs. Reach & Johnston of Philadelphia, Pa., have been granted the exclusive right to publish the official book containing the Constitution and Playing Rules of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, as revised and adopted at a meeting held at the Grand Central Hotel, in the city of New York, on the 2d of February, A.D. 1876, and that the foregoing is a true copy of the same.”  —N.E. Young, Secretary

First printing of the first National League publication (Grobini, 3-8; Smith, 6566), the founding document of Major League Baseball, issued just months before the first season of play. The size of the print run is unknown, though internal evidence suggests that it could be as small as just 200 copies.  There is just one other recorded surviving copy of this fragile item, which is on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. This, the founding document of Major League Baseball, is a central piece of Americana, inaugurating an institution that would come to be a defining aspect of American culture. Fine condition by any standards, in a remarkable state of preservation.

For information concerning the recent acquisition by the National Library of Canada of the constitution for Canadian baseball (also one of two known copies), please click here.