The Baseball Myth, Where Did Baseball Come From?

The Mission

At the turn of the century baseball was becoming a popular pastime and a booming business. Albert G Spalding a weathly sporting goods dealer , realized that the American public would be more loyal to a sport that had its origins in the U.S. than one with roots in Europe. So it became his mission to sell baseball to the American public as a entirely American game.

The Commission

In 1905 Spalding created created the Special Baseball Commission to establish the origins of Baseball. In 1907 the Commission issued its report which it called " The Official Baseball Guide of 1906-1907. One member of the Commission A.G. Mills declared confidently that it " should forever set at rest the question as to the origin of Baseball. But the truth was the Commission had done almost no research what so ever. Their files contained just three letters one from an Englishman who had helped to popularize baseball , one from Spalding and one from James Ward a friend and supporter of Spalding.

The Rounders Contingent

In his letter Chadwick pointed out the obvious similarities between baseball and a game called rounders a popular sport in England and Colonial America. Rounders was played on a diamond with a base on each corner. A striker with a bat would stand beside the fourth base and try to hit balls thrown by a pecker. If he hit the ball fair the striker could earn a run by rounding the bases. If the striker missed the ball three times or his hit was caught before it hit the ground he was out. After a certain number of outs the defensive and offensive teams switched sides. Rings a bell there doesn't it. however it didn't with Spalding and his men. The Commission which selected Chadwicks letter to represent the rounder's contingent quickly dismissed it because Chadwick had been born in England.

The American Contingent

In deference to Spalding , James Ward supported the theory of American Origin. His testimony amounted to no more than a friendly opinion. In his own letter Spalding argued vehemently that baseball had been invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839 in cooperstown New York. The game of Base Ball he said is entirely of American origin and has no relation to any game from any other country. On what evidence did he base his argument? On a letter from a man named Abner Graves , a mining engineer from Denver Colarado who Spalding said recalled Doubleday inventing the game 68 years earlier. Graves was over 80 years okd when he gave his account.

Creating History

In his report Spalding stated that Graves was present when Doubleday first outlined with a stick in the dirt the present baseball diamond. And that Doubleday named his newly invented game Base Ball. But none of this was true. Spalding invented it all including the supposed letter from Graves.

Doubleday And Baseball

The fact is there is no record any where associating Doubleday with Base Ball before 1905. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the Baseball Hall of Fame should have been placed some where besides Cooperstown. Maybe even in England.

Doubleday entered Westpoint in 1838 and was not in Cooperstown anytime in 1838 or 1839.

Doubleday's obituary in the New York Times in January of 1893 did not mention one single word about baseball.

Doubleday was a writer but he never wrote a single word about the sport he supposedly invented. Not one mention of Baseball ever.

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