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Baseball Origin Controversy |
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Based on old American fokelore, baseball's storied invention was by a young
West Point cadet named Abner Doubleday. In the summer of 1839, in Cooperstown,
New York, Doubleday supposedly started the game of baseball. Because of
numerous types of baseball, or rather games similar to it, the orgian of the
game has been disputed for decades by sports historians all over the world. In
1839, in Cooperstown, New York, Doubleday supposedly started the game of
baseball. Doubleday, also a famous Union general during the Civil War, was said
to be the inventor of baseball by Abner Graves, an elderly minor from New York.
In response to the question of where baseball first originated, major leage
owners summoned a committee in 1907. Abner Graves stepped before the committe
and gave his testimony. In Graves' account of "the first game," the
Otsego Academy and Cooperstown's Green's Select School played against ne
another in 1839. Committeemean Alber G. Spalding, the founder of Spalding's
Sporting Goods, favored Graves' declaration and convinced the other
committeemen that Grave's account was true. As a result, in 1939, the commitee
and the State of New York named Cooperstown and Abner Doubleday as the
birthplace and the inventor.
Today, many baseball historians still doubt the testimony of Abner Graves.
Historians say the story came from the crative memeory of one very old man and
wa spread by a superpatriotic sporting goods manufacturer, determinded to
preove taht baseball was a wholly American invention. According to Doubleday's
diary, he was not plying badeball in Cooperstown, but attending school at West
Point on that day in 1839. Also, historians have found that nowhere in
doubleday's diary has he ever "claimed to have had anything to do with
baseball, and may never have even seend a game." this leads many to the
conclusion that Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball, but it is still a
disputed and active issue. Sports Historians have presented impressive evidence
showing that American baseball, far from being an independent invention,
evolved out of various ball and stick games that ahd been played in many areas
of the world since the beginning of recorded history. But in early America,
precursors of baseball included informal gmes of English origin such as
paddleball, trap ball, rounders, and town ball. The latter was a popular game
in colonial New England and was played by adults and children with a bat and
ball on an open field.
Printed references to "base ball" in America date back to the
eighteenth century. Among these accounts is one of Albigence Waldo, a surgeon
with George Washington's troops at Valley Forge who told stories of soldiers
batting balls and running bases in thier free time. Similarly in 1834 Robin
Carvers's Book of Sports related that an American version of rounders called
"base" or "goal ball" was rivaling cricket in popularity
among Americans. Indeed, cricket played a role in the evolution or organized
baseball. From this British game came umpires and innings, and early baseball
writers like Henry Chadwick used cricket terminology such as
"batsman", "playing for the side", and "excellent
field" in describing early baseball games. Likewise, the pioneer baseball
innovator Harry Wright, a cricket professional turned baseball manager, drew
heavily on his cricket bachground in promoting baseball as a professional team
sport in the United States.
By the 1840's various forms of baseball vied for acceptance, including the
popular Massachusetts and New York versions of the game. The Massachusetts game
utilized an irregular four-sided field of play, with four bases located at
fixed, equidistantces from each other and the "striker's" or batter's
position away from the home base. "Scouts," or fielders, put men out
by fielding a batted ball on the fly or on the first bounc, or by hitting a
runner with a thrown ball. But this version of the game was overshadowed in the
late 1840's by the "New York game," a popular version of which was
devised by the members of the New York Knickerbocker Club. Organized in 1845 by
a band of aspiring gentlemen and baseball enthusiasts, the Knickerbocker
version was devised by one thier members, Alexander J. Cartwright. Cartwright
prescribed a diamond-shaped infield with bases at 90 feet apart, a standard
still used today. the pitching distance was set at 45 feet from the home base,
and a pitcher was required to "pitch" a ball in a stiff-armed,
underhanded fashion. The three-strikes-are-out rule was adopted, and a batter
could also be put out by a fielder catchin a batted ball in the air, or on the
first bounce, or by thowing a fielded ball to the first basebman before the
runner arrived. Other innovations included the nine man team and three outs
ending a team's batting in thier half on an inning. Thus Cartwright's version
of baseball became the basis of the game as presently played. Over the years,
other innovations were added, including the nine inning standard for games,
changes in the pitching distance, and so on. On June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New
Jersey, the first organized baseball game was played by the New York Nine and
the New York Knickerbockers.