Pesäpallo, the Finnish version of baseball developed by Lauri Pihkala, is played for the first time at Kaisaniemi Park in Helsinki.

Pesäpallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other places including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario. It is similar to brännboll, rounders, lapta, and baseball.

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners advancing around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.

Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala was the inventor of pesäpallo, the Finnish variant of baseball. He was born in the vicarage of Pihtipudas, the son of the minister Alexander Gummerus. In 1969 he became one of the first persons to receive an honorary doctorate in Sport Sciences from the University of Jyväskylä, together with president Urho Kekkonen and Professor Kaarina Kari.

Kaisaniemi park is a popular park, in the center of Helsinki, in the region of Kluuvi. The Kaisaniemi Park was named after Catharina "Cajsa" Wahllund. Part of the park was given to the University of Helsinki in 1829, for gardening. The oldest greenhouse was opened in 1889.