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.
The doubters remained unconvinced, but to most of the baseball-watching world the commission's findings were seen as irrefutable. For the next three decades, children were raised on heroic tales of baseball's glorious inventor, Abner Doubleday. The story held until 1939; the alleged year of baseball's centennial. To celebrate the game's 100th birthday, a National Hall of Fame was erected in Cooperstown. Yet as the building prepared to welcome its first visitors, Robert Henderson, a New York librarian of British birth, published a book illuminating the glaring holes in the Mills Commission's findings. In its pages, he also laid out a convincing argument for Chadwick's rounders theory. However, the Mills Commission, in an attempt to discover the 'where' of baseball's beginnings, had inadvertently switched the conversation to 'who'. A new founding figure had to be identified to fill the void left by debunking Doubleday. Alexander Cartwright, a long-deceased baseball pioneer who helped form one of the earliest-known organized teams - the New York Knickerbockers in the mid-1840s - was a convenient choice. Cartwright, who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame a year earlier, had already been rumored to have come up with many of the adaptations that made previous bat-and-ball games look like the sport we enjoy today. Over the next several years, more and more people abandoned the Doubleday theory. A second book written by Henderson in 1947 drove the last nail into the coffin.
By the 1960s, Cartwright had pretty much replaced Doubleday in all the history books. However, over time new information slowly came to light that began to cast a doubt as to his influence on the early game. For instance, it is now widely believed that historic accounts of Cartwright were based largely on his own son and grandson's exaggerated - and in some cases, falsified - testimonies. Furthermore, in the 1990s and 2000s, researchers recovered a series of interviews with Cartwright's Knickerbocker teammates which revealed a chorus of co-creators who each describe their role in a handful of innovations. William R. Wheaton claims to have invented many of the modern regulations as co-founder of an earlier team called the New York Baseball Club (aka The Gothams). William H. Tucker, Daniel "Doc" Adams, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth are just a few of the other early pioneers who likely deserve credit for many or all of the contributions previously attributed to Cartwright. In his 2011 book Baseball in the Garden of Eden, MLB's official historian John Thorn writes that Cartwright has "a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame on which every word of substance is false."
The theory that modern-day baseball evolved from the game of Rounders has also started to fall from favor. Recent discoveries show references to an English bat-and-ball game called "Base-Ball" that may even predate references to Rounders. More than likely, the two sports developed independently from a common ancestor. In 2004, John Thorn found a document that places American baseball in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791. Robert Henderson, in his aforementioned second book, traces competitive bat-and-ball games as far back as ancient Egypt and medieval Europe.
Despite having been debunked for nearly 80 years, the impact of the Mills Commission continues to be felt. Every year, tens of thousands of baseball fans make their a pilgrimage to Cooperstown to visit the Hall of Fame. The streets surrounding the Hall are lined with memorabilia stores and other baseball-themed attractions. In my opinion, the saddest result of the Commission is the altered legacy of Abner Doubleday. As a historically-significant Union general in the civil war, and successful businessman in the years that followed, there are many things he could have been remembered for. Instead, he'll forevermore be known as the man who didn't invent baseball.
Sources:
"Baseball Centenary: Hit or Error?", Ralph E. Renaud, The New York Times, June 11, 1939
"Retiring Librarian's Own Books 'Struck Out' a Baseball Legend", Author Unknown, The New York Times, June 4, 1953
"Robert W. Henderson Dies; Librarian and Sports Expert", Wolfgang Saxon, The New York Times, August 20, 1985
"Baseball; Now Pittsfield Stakes Claim to Baseball's Origins", Frank Litsky, The New York Times, May 12, 2004
"Four Fathers of Baseball", Essay, John Thorn, July 16, 2005
"Debate Over Baseball's Origins Spills Into Another Century", John Thorn, The New York Times, March 12, 2011
"Henderson, Cartwright, and the 1953 U.S. Congress", Adam Berenbak, Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2014
The doubters remained unconvinced, but to most of the baseball-watching world the commission's findings were seen as irrefutable. For the next three decades, children were raised on heroic tales of baseball's glorious inventor, Abner Doubleday. The story held until 1939; the alleged year of baseball's centennial. To celebrate the game's 100th birthday, a National Hall of Fame was erected in Cooperstown. Yet as the building prepared to welcome its first visitors, Robert Henderson, a New York librarian of British birth, published a book illuminating the glaring holes in the Mills Commission's findings. In its pages, he also laid out a convincing argument for Chadwick's rounders theory. However, the Mills Commission, in an attempt to discover the 'where' of baseball's beginnings, had inadvertently switched the conversation to 'who'. A new founding figure had to be identified to fill the void left by debunking Doubleday. Alexander Cartwright, a long-deceased baseball pioneer who helped form one of the earliest-known organized teams - the New York Knickerbockers in the mid-1840s - was a convenient choice. Cartwright, who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame a year earlier, had already been rumored to have come up with many of the adaptations that made previous bat-and-ball games look like the sport we enjoy today. Over the next several years, more and more people abandoned the Doubleday theory. A second book written by Henderson in 1947 drove the last nail into the coffin.
By the 1960s, Cartwright had pretty much replaced Doubleday in all the history books. However, over time new information slowly came to light that began to cast a doubt as to his influence on the early game. For instance, it is now widely believed that historic accounts of Cartwright were based largely on his own son and grandson's exaggerated - and in some cases, falsified - testimonies. Furthermore, in the 1990s and 2000s, researchers recovered a series of interviews with Cartwright's Knickerbocker teammates which revealed a chorus of co-creators who each describe their role in a handful of innovations. William R. Wheaton claims to have invented many of the modern regulations as co-founder of an earlier team called the New York Baseball Club (aka The Gothams). William H. Tucker, Daniel "Doc" Adams, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth are just a few of the other early pioneers who likely deserve credit for many or all of the contributions previously attributed to Cartwright. In his 2011 book Baseball in the Garden of Eden, MLB's official historian John Thorn writes that Cartwright has "a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame on which every word of substance is false."The theory that modern-day baseball evolved from the game of Rounders has also started to fall from favor. Recent discoveries show references to an English bat-and-ball game called "Base-Ball" that may even predate references to Rounders. More than likely, the two sports developed independently from a common ancestor. In 2004, John Thorn found a document that places American baseball in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791. Robert Henderson, in his aforementioned second book, traces competitive bat-and-ball games as far back as ancient Egypt and medieval Europe. Despite having been debunked for nearly 80 years, the impact of the Mills Commission continues to be felt. Every year, tens of thousands of baseball fans make their a pilgrimage to Cooperstown to visit the Hall of Fame. The streets surrounding the Hall are lined with memorabilia stores and other baseball-themed attractions. In my opinion, the saddest result of the Commission is the altered legacy of Abner Doubleday. As a historically-significant Union general in the civil war, and successful businessman in the years that followed, there are many things he could have been remembered for. Instead, he'll forevermore be known as the man who didn't invent baseball.
Sources:
"Baseball Centenary: Hit or Error?", Ralph E. Renaud, The New York Times, June 11, 1939
"Retiring Librarian's Own Books 'Struck Out' a Baseball Legend", Author Unknown, The New York Times, June 4, 1953
"Robert W. Henderson Dies; Librarian and Sports Expert", Wolfgang Saxon, The New York Times, August 20, 1985
"Baseball; Now Pittsfield Stakes Claim to Baseball's Origins", Frank Litsky, The New York Times, May 12, 2004
"Four Fathers of Baseball", Essay, John Thorn, July 16, 2005
"Debate Over Baseball's Origins Spills Into Another Century", John Thorn, The New York Times, March 12, 2011
"Henderson, Cartwright, and the 1953 U.S. Congress", Adam Berenbak, Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2014
