Baseball: American Sports' Whodunit
By Jay Palitto
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Baseball has been the American National Pastime for over a century. The sport is watched and beloved by millions of people across the country year after year. The game has seen multiple adaptations in its history with rule changes and expansion to countries outside of the United States. The notion that baseball, being a sport as well known and popular with the American people as it is, does not have a confirmed inventor, group of inventors, or just a general origin is truly astounding. Despite all this, the origins of the game have remained somewhat of a mystery throughout its run. There have been multiple theories and stories that people have spawned to speculate how the game was started and who might have been the key people in inventing the game we all love. These conjectures range from a single person creating the game in the early 1800s to it being a collective effort of combining foreign sports to make an all-new one. The origins of the game of baseball have been mythologized in many ways, yet no one can say for certain how the game originated.
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It was widely considered for a very long time that United States Army Officer and Civil War General, Abner Doubleday was the inventor of the game. Doubleday was born in 1819 and began his military career very early in his life. It was alleged that while living in Cooperstown, New York in 1839, a young Abner Doubleday had made a diamond in a field nearby for the boys of a local academy and then proceeded to create the rules of his new game (Adler). This theory had been very well believed long after its alleged occurrence. This story is also largely the reason that the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, New York where Doubleday had allegedly established the game. This theory was also helped by an alleged witness in a man named Abner Graves. Graves had claimed that he had been there and seen Abner Doubleday invent the game. This was pushed further when a ball was also found in a trunk owned by Graves, and many would claim it was the actual ball used by Doubleday when he invented the game (Adler). All of this information combined was enough to convince the American population for decades that Doubleday had been the sole creator of America’s pastime. They believed it so much so that a panel in 1907 that was tasked with looking into the origins of baseball had made the declaration that Doubleday, who had passed away fifteen years prior, was the game’s originator (Who Invented Baseball?).
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Even with all the so-called evidence that would make Abner Doubleday the creator of baseball, it is the job of many to make sure that this theory is one hundred percent sound. In that process, it was found that there were major problems with the idea that Doubleday was the sole innovator. To begin, there was the concept that should have been a tip to those believing this theory and that was that Abner Doubleday had never once admitted or taken any credit himself for inventing the game (Who Invented Baseball?). The only person that had claimed they could give him credit was Abner Graves who had nothing more than his word for people to speculate on. The only other piece that anyone had to work with was when the A.G. Mills commission had a letter from an elderly man also claiming Doubleday’s alleged feat. However, this example is not one to be taken seriously as the man was eventually institutionalized and later died in an insane asylum (Abner Doubleday.). Another piece of information about Doubleday that would have been crucial in showing the validity of this argument could be found by simply looking at the General’s obituary. In his obituary, Abner Doubleday is described as someone who did not show much fondness for outdoor sports (Abner Doubleday.). With this fact in mind, it becomes much harder to believe that someone who did not carry an interest in outdoor sports, such as Abner Doubleday, would be involved in the invention of one of the country’s most popular outdoor sports. The biggest example of evidence disproving the Abner Doubleday theory was one involving his military career. This is the fact that Doubleday was not even in Cooperstown in 1939. Being twenty years old at the time, Doubleday was a new cadet in the United States Military Academy (Adler). While it does not confirm that Doubleday could not have invented the game later, a conclusion can be made based on this and the aforementioned evidence that Abner Doubleday was not the inventor of baseball. With that theory proven to be false, baseball historians looked for another individual who could be the true inventor.
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The next invention myth that was crafted was that of Alexander Cartwright. The basis of this story is that the game was invented in New York City in 1845 by Cartwright (Hershberger). Alexander Joy Cartwright was born in 1820 making Abner Doubleday one year his senior. In his early years, he was a bookseller, bank teller, as well as a volunteer firefighter. He did his fireman work with the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company which led to the creation of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in which he was the team’s secretary and vice president (Alexander Joy Cartwright). The club was formed in the early 1840s and Cartwright was looked at as one of the key contributors to its inception. Soon, the club was recognized as one of the earliest in baseball’s history which left people to automatically conclude that Cartwright was the inventor of the sport as the game’s popularity continued to grow throughout the country. While the time and places do match up well in this theory, much more so than the Abner Doubleday theory, the story still has its details that expose it for its falsehoods.
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To begin, a book published in 1866 written by sportswriter Charles Peverelly included an account of the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club founding. In it, Cartwright implies that the club’s creation was not only his doing but the work of many. This shows that even if it was true that Cartwright was involved in baseball’s creation, he is not the only one who deserves credit for doing so. It also insinuates that the game of baseball was not new to the ball club, as they had been playing for three years prior and Cartwright was not one of the club’s original members (Hershberger). It is also confirmed that in 1849, just four years after Cartwright’s recorded involvement in the club, he was one of those who made a rush to California in search of gold (Alexander Joy Cartwright). While the idea of gold was an enticing notion at the time, it seems somewhat unbelievable that the supposed founder of baseball would so easily leave the game behind to go across the country. Two pieces of evidence attempting to prove Cartwright’s involvement are in two biographical novels. The first of these was The Man Who Invented Baseball written by Harold Peterson, however, this was quickly discredited as it contains no source citations for its claims (Riess). The other biography was the book Live All You Can written by Jay Martin. In the book, Martin details the life of Cartwright from his time in New York all the way to the end of his life spent in Hawaii (Reiss). Upon further review, however, the book was found to be an unreliable source when speaking of Cartwright’s involvement in baseball as well as its remaining information. The book, while being proven accurate in its details of Cartwright’s life in Hawaii, provides no evidence in its declarations either; furthermore, it has multiple incorrect statements such as the misdating of important events in history which only additionally proves its lack of reliability (Riess). While the Alexander Cartwright story may seem much more realistic than its Abner Doubleday counterpart, its accuracy proves to be just as spotty as the other.
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When looking at these theories further in-depth, it is strange how similar they are. Both told stories of an individual man in his early twenties living in the state of New York who developed the design and rules of the sport on the spot in front of a group of people. While those may seem like simple similarities, they are very specific keys to either story that make the two eerily similar to each other. The stories also make claims that either creation took place only six years apart from each other. It would make sense that after hearing the Abner Doubleday theory for so long that the American people would be so quick to believe a similar theory, just with someone with a different name, when the truth about Doubleday was shown. For this reason, it can be concluded that the Alexander Cartwright myth would most likely not exist if it were not for the Abner Doubleday myth. Since the Doubleday myth was spawned by supposed witnesses, it led to people thinking more towards the aspect of proving the story’s credibility rather than thinking more in-depth into the actual invention and coming to an original conclusion. Even though Doubleday was proven not to be who he was made out to be, the basis of the story was still in people’s minds. This would lead to people, instead of thinking of something completely different, looking for another man who fit the same mold. They found that man in Alexander Cartwright. While both myths have been shown to be false, they still have different specific things about them that make them somewhat believable as well as things that discredit the other. One of these is the fact that it was proven Cartwright was involved in baseball in some capacity and that Doubleday had no interest in baseball or any sport similar. We can see this in documents written about Alexander Cartwright in baseball, while no such documents involving Abner Doubleday exist. Despite that knowledge, only Doubleday’s story involves an on-the-scene witness claiming him to be the creator, something that Cartwright’s story lacks. One could form their own opinion about which story is more believable and which to go by; but based on the evidence given, there seems to be one that stands over the other.
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Although it was proven to be false long before the other, the Abner Doubleday myth seems much more believable than Alexander Cartwright’s. While they may have not been seen as credible sources, there were still two people who claimed that they saw Doubleday invent the game. This is something in the Alexander Cartwright story that does not exist. While it is documented that there were people with Cartwright, there was no one at the time who claimed that baseball was his invention. Another piece that puts Doubleday over Cartwright is the reason that both left New York at the time. Cartwright, as mentioned before, was one of those who took part in the gold rush to California in 1849. Even though it was something that many people on the East Coast were doing at the time, it would seem peculiar that the inventor of a brand-new sport would leave in its early days. Doubleday left New York for a different reason: he was heavily involved in the United States Military. This makes Doubleday’s story more believable because, if his involvement in baseball were true, he would have been the first in a long line of players who left the game for a period of time to serve their country. This list includes legends of the game like Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio. While one theory might be more believable than the other, that does not negate the fact that both are incorrect. With two theories about individual men from New York creating the game now being proven false, It would seem like the time to ponder new ideas and think differently to find the answer to baseball’s origin.
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While they are not as established or well-known as Doubleday and Cartwright’s theories, there are still ideas that people have come up with to discover baseball’s invention. Some speculate that the sport originated from early “bat and ball variants played by Puritan settlers” (Irvine et al. 176). This would mean that people believe that the game was invented and was being played long before Doubleday or Cartwright were even born. This would make sense considering the other theory that the game was formed as a mild combination of two European sports: Cricket and Rounders. Cricket is played on an oval-shaped field with two wickets placed twenty-two yards apart from each other; a popping crease is in front of either wicket serving as a batsman-safe zone (Gibbs). This is similar to baseball as it takes place in an enclosed field in a stadium and has boxes for batsmen. The defending team has a bowler, which is cricket’s equivalent to baseball’s pitcher. The bowler attempts to bowl the ball and hit the wicket while the batsman is attempting to hit the ball at the same time as protecting the wicket; if the ball hits the wicket, the batter is out (Gibbs). The influence of this game can be seen as the thrower of the ball is aiming at a certain spot to get the batter out while the batter attempts to hit the thrown ball. Another similarity is that a ball caught on the fly results in an out. A ball that is not caught is an opportunity for the offensive team to score runs as the hitter and another batsman run across to each others’ crease to score runs; this can continue until the ball is thrown into the wicketkeeper which is cricket’s equivalent to baseball’s catcher (Gibbs). Cricket is not the only game that has most likely been an influence on baseball, the other is the game of Rounders. “Rounders is somewhat like softball, where the bowler (pitcher) throws underhand, and the offense tries to hit the ball and run around four bases” (Fay and Pfannkoch). It is evident that these two older European sports were influences on baseball as we know it now. Even if that is true, it is still unknown to the public a definite time frame or a person or group of people involved in baseball’s creation.
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The fact that the origins of baseball have remained such a mystery for over two hundred years would seem wild to anyone aware of the game’s massive popularity. While this may be knowledge that baseball watchers feel they must know, it may not be so important to find. The mystery adds to the lore of the game, especially because there is no living person on the planet who can tell anyone the truth. The ambiguity is almost like a magic trick. The trick amazes and wows the viewers and leaves them wondering how it was done. When the trick is revealed, it becomes less special. Some want to know the truth so badly that they lose sight of what may happen as a consequence of their newfound knowledge. So it may be better for all if the origins of the game remain unknown. It will keep the magic of baseball intact.
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