born April 17, 1820, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died July 12, 1892, Honolulu, Hawaii
U.S. surveyor and baseball enthusiast.
Cartwright was a founder of the amateur New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and chaired the commission that established baseball's official rules. These included the requirement of tagging out a base runner rather than hitting him with a thrown ball and fixing the distance between bases at 90 ft (27.4 m). The first game under the newly codified rules was apparently played in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846. See also Abner Doubleday .