He moved the club to play on better grounds

The Knickerbockers started promoting their games after deciding on its regulations. The New York Nine was their first opposition. The first official baseball game was played on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, after the teams crossed the Hudson River from Manhattan. Cartwright, who claimed to be among the finest Knickerbocker players in his journal, sat out the opening match. Instead, he played the role of an umpire and assessed a six-cent fee to each participant who cursed. Ironically, the Knickerbockers lost the match using the rules they created by a resounding 23 to 1 margin.

For four more years, Cartwright was a member of the Knickerbockers, who participated in several additional contests against the New York Nine and other neighborhood teams. There are no records of the matches or Cartwright's performance. Baseball quickly became a popular hobby for many young New York men thanks to Cartwright and the other Knickerbockers. In those days, it was mostly played by clerks, attorneys, doctors, and businessmen who had time to play after work in the late evenings rather than industrial workers who had no time or stamina after working 12-hour or longer days.