The origins of baseball probably stretch back to 1839 when Abler Doubleday, a civil engineer student, laid out a diamond-shaped field at Cooperstown, New York and attempted to standardize the rules governing the playing of such games as town ball and four old cat, the ancestors of baseball. By the end of the Civil War, interest in the game had grown rapidly. Over 200 teams or clubs existed, some of which toured the country playing rivals; they belonged to a national association of “Baseball Players” that had proclaimed a set of standard rules. These teams are amateurs or semi-professionals, but as the game waxed in popularity, it offered opportunities for profit, and the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, appeared in 1869. Other cities soon fielded professional teams, and in a rival league appeared, the American Association. Competition between the two was intense, and in 1883 they played a post-season contest, the first “world’s series”. The American Association eventually collapsed, but in 1890 the American League was organized.