The Knickerbockers were a baseball team long before they were a basketball team.

In fact, they were among the first professional baseball teams in New York, dating to 1842, when a Manhattan group including Alexander Cartwright (long credited, though later disproved, to be the creator of most of baseball’s modern rules) founded the club, which began play in 1845.

The “Knickerbocker Nine” had taken the name from the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company, which, in turn, had adopted it from the term applied to Dutch settlers in the 1600s, specifically to the way they wore their pants rolled up just below the knee — or “knickers.”

In fact, when Casey Stengel was hired by the fledgling expansion club in the National League in 1962, he was so excited he proclaimed: “It’s a great honor to be joining the Knickerbockers!” He was quickly reminded the team he was actually managing would be called the Metropolitans.