Where Credit is Due

While revising the Neshanock team brochure last winter, we thought it was important to include some basic baseball history.  In the process, I wondered if it was still necessary to say that Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball or have anything to do with the game's beginnings.  After all the work that has been done, it felt like this was or should be common knowledge.  In the end, we included the standard disclaimer that no one person, including Doubleday, invented the game. Any doubts on the need were dispelled when Mark Granieri, the official blog photographer, saw the below sign in Mendham, New Jersey claiming Doubleday was baseball's "founder." It's wrong, wrong, wrong!  Not only is there no evidence Doubleday invented baseball, there's no record of Doubleday having played baseball. Indeed to my knowledge, there's no evidence Doubleday ever went to a major league baseball game. Yet the myth or legend endures.

Photo by Mark Granieri

Why does it matter?  First of all, historical accuracy always matters. Regardless of the subject, allowing inaccuracies to go unchallenged is never a good thing.  More importantly, however, what we might call "fake history," all too often gets in the way of what really happened and who deserves credit. In Doubleday's case, the baseball legend tends to block out his long and distinguished military career, especially during the Civil War. As much as we love baseball, Doubleday's service to the Union in its hour of need is without question far more important than anything he could have done for baseball.

Similarly, the Doubleday myth obscures the accomplishments of those who helped get organized baseball started in New York City in the 1830s and 1840s. At the heart of this effort were the early baseball clubs. While they weren't the first baseball club, a great deal of credit is due to the Knickerbocker Club of New York City.  Of special note among the KBBC leadership is Daniel "Doc" Adams, long-time club president.  Adams is, according to John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball, the game's "most important figure not yet in the Hall of Fame."

Adams's contributions to baseball are thoroughly explained in Thorn's landmark work  Baseball in the Garden of Eden and on the Doc Adams website. Noteworthy by itself is how Adams "added" the shortstop's position to what was then an eight-man game.  In addition, he was instrumental in making baseball a game of nine players, playing for nine innings on 90-foot base paths.  Any of these contributions is worthy of historical recognition, but despite his record, the good doctor is not in the Hall of Fame.

After coming close the last time he was eligible, Adams is up for consideration again this year, under less than favorable conditions.  Under the current rules, Adams is part of the Classic Baseball Era which covers anyone active before 1980. To make the possibilities even more limited, there will be only eight candidates from well over a century of baseball history on the ballot.  It's a steep mountain to climb, but Adams' record and the importance of historical accuracy make it worth the effort.  No one has any illusions about the difficulty of the task, but perhaps this time credit will be given where credit is long overdue.