In Part I of this post, I review the nationalistic debate that led to the formation of the Mills Commission. Assembled by Albert Spalding, who insisted that baseball was an American invention, their task was to determine the origin of the sport once and for all. Spalding hand-picked the members himself,
choosing only those who agreed with him. To head the commission, he
appointed his good friend, former National League President A.G. Mills (years
earlier, Mills had delivered a patriotic speech on baseball's early development,
while the crowd banged their tables and chanted "No rounders! No
rounders! No rounders!"). It took the commission three long years to
release its findings. They finally concluded the game was created in 1839
by late Civil War general Abner Doubleday. A small town in upstate
New York, by the name of Cooperstown, was picked for the setting. The
commission's sole piece of evidence was the recollection of a man who was only
five years old at the time of the events in his testimony. Doubleday, who
kept a regular diary and enjoyed penning letters, made no such claims - at
least not in his writings (in fact, he barely mentioned the sport at all).
Despite having known Doubleday while he was alive, neither Spalding nor
Mills added any first-hand knowledge in support of the commission's report.
