10. Baseball

The plaque says it all: we have Brooklyn to thank for many things, but baseball is, perhaps, one of the most popular inventions in the United States today. According to some claims, the earliest known published rules of the game were actually written in 1845 for a New York City “base ball” club called the Knickerbockers, which was organized by Alexander Cartwright (regarded as the father of baseball).

However, Untapped Cities’ tour guide, Mandy Edgecombe, also notes that the first official game of baseball was reported to have taken place in Hoboken: “The very first game is memorialized on the intersection of Washington and 11th with a baseball diamond in the sidewalk,” she tells us. “When you drive into town all the signs say ‘birthplace of baseball and Frank Sinatra!'”

Interestingly, the lost sport of Ice Baseball also had it’s origins in Brooklyn: the first recorded game took place on February 4, 1861 between the Atlantics and the Charter Oaks, and was witnessed by 12,000 people.