Abner Doubleday invented baseball
Abner Doubleday is believed by many to have invented the American game of baseball, loosely based on the English game of rounders, in a pasture near Cooperstown New York in 1839. Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, celebrates and perpetuates this myth with its Doubleday Field, where the annual Hall of Fame Game is played. This myth is gradually being displaced, but the identity of the true inventor of the game remains elusive.
Pittsfield Massachusetts, a small city in the Berkshires, has in its possession a document which is dated 1791, and which addresses the inconveniences which may occur when baseball is played in an urban environment. The document warns against playing games of several names, one of them baseball, within eighty yards of the meeting house, after first expressing concerns over the expense and frequency of replacing glass windows in the building.
A game called “batball” is also mentioned as well as is “…any Games with Balls.” Abner Doubleday wasn’t born until 1823, so his invention of the game is cast in serious doubt by the document.
Abner Doubleday is far more than a myth, however. He served as a senior officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, and the troops under his command often played a game called baseball as recreation. The rules then were frequently adapted to fit the grounds upon which the game was played – hence the term “ground rules” – and officers with time on their hands occasionally arbitrated disputes, so he may have contributed to the game’s evolution.