25. Abner Doubleday and the game of baseball
The story that Abner Doubleday invented baseball was deliberately created in 1908, by a group known as the Mills Commission, in order to separate the American game from the ancient British game of rounders. The commission was chaired by Abraham Mills, at the time president of the National League, and supported by American league president Albert Spaulding. The official story endorsed by the Mills Commission was that Doubleday invented the game and the rules in 1839, and the first game played under the rules took place in Cooperstown, New York, that year. The National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame officially recognize Doubleday as the inventor of baseball, but to date has not been inducted him into the Hall.
Whether baseball was derived from rounders or grew out of its own remains a disputed aspect of the game and American history. References in documents from American towns mention baseball by that name, as well as rounders, being played long before 1839. Spalding worked tirelessly to perpetuate the myth. In his book, America’s National Game he pointed out that the invention of America’s game by a man who had been a hero during the Civil War (including at Gettysburg) was highly appropriate. So while the preponderance of the evidence is that baseball evolved over time (and continues to do so today) Abner Doubleday continues to be officially credited with its invention.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“The Invention of the Telescope”. Albert Van Helden. 1977
“The First Steamboat”. John H. Lienhard, Engines of our Ingenuity. University of Houston. Online
“Who invented radio?” Tesla Life and Legacy, Public Broadcasting System. PBS.org
“Charles F. Jenkins”. Entry, Ohio History Central. Online
“Bell did not invent telephone, US rules”. Rory Carroll, The Guardian. June 17, 2002
“Buckminster Fuller, International Outlaw”. Calvin Tomkins, The New Yorker. December 31, 1965
“The Sweet History of Chocolate”. Christopher Klein, History.com. February 13, 2013
“American Inventors, Entrepreneurs and Visionaries”. Charles W. Carey. 2010
“The Monopolization of Monopoly: The $500 Buyout”. Burton H. Wolfe, San Francisco Bay Guardian. 1976
“Was Hollywood Built on Piracy?” Terry Hart, Copyhype. May 7, 2012. Online
“It’s the little things”. Entry, Benjamin Franklin: Inquiring Mind. PBS.org. Online
“Crime Fiction (The New Critical Idiom)”. John Scaggs. 2005
“Dr. Guillotin”. William Chambers and Robert Chambers, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. 1844
“Who invented peanut butter?” Entry, National Peanut Board. Online
“Washington and the new agriculture”. Entry, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress. Online
“Revolving Windsor Armchair”. Entry, Thomas Jefferson, Monticello. Online
“The Man Who Didn’t Invent Baseball”. Victor Salvatore, American Heritage Magazine. June/July 1983