Evening star., 1939-04-22
Coils Time and PIoce MYTHS
But Admits General Lived

Mr.. Menke. In his new encyclo-
pedia of sports, proceeds to tear this
folk-tale into small pieces and chew
them up. He declares (and I think
he proves that the time and place
are NEUROLOGICAL He almost con-
vinces you that Gen. Doubleday is
NEUROLOGICAL, too: but then, as
handsome afterthought, he admits
that the General lived and breathed
0819-93) and was well spoken of on
all sides.
Mr.. Menke has nothing personal
against the General He merely
implies that nobody would be more
surprised to hear himself called the
inventor of baseball than this same
military man.
The town of Cooperstown, N. Y,
Is not NEUROLOGICAL, either. In fact,
this quiet and lovely hamlet, bur-
geoning on baseballs official legend,
has baseball museum and base
ball hall of fame and q number of
patriotic citizens who agree to
man with the dictum Of local editor,
Mr.. Carpenter. to wit:
Frank G. Menke is nuts"
AS soon as Mr.. Menke replies
that Mr.. Carpenter is nuts, thus
balancing matters all around, the
case can 60 to the jury-and Coop
erstown is sure to be the winner,
since possession is nine points of
the law and nothing is deader than
today's dissent from yesterdays de-
cision.
am in favor Of letting Coopers-
town keep her honors and her con-
crete souvenirs and her celebration.
I also am in favor of letting Mr..
Menke speak his mind freely, and
don't believe he is nuts. At least,
not on this topic.
Former National League Head
Responsible for Story
The man responsible for Coopers-
towns glory is A. c. Mills, one time
president of the National League,
who made an Official" report on
the origin of the game in 1907. Mr..
Mills said he was surprised to find
that his old pal, Gen. Doubleday, had
invented the game. He might well
have been surprised, for he and the
General were pals for Is years, to
the day of the Generals death, and
the General never mentioned the
fact.
This alone should be the tipoff.
However, Mr.. Menke goes on to
point out that, when the Mills re-
port was made public in 1907, scores
of indignant old gentlemen took
pens in hand and wrote in to say
that their granddaddies played base
ball long before the infant Gen.
Doubleday had cut his eye-teeth-
and beauties they were, both of
them-in 1919.
Furthermore, the evidence shows
'that the General was West Point
cadet in 1889 and not, as Mills said,
prospective cadet lettering around
Cooperstown inventing baseball.
Furthermore, there is no record
of the game being played on a
diamond (credited to Doubleday
until 1886, when Alexander Cart
wright came up with this handy
device and most of the other rules
which are standard today.
Furthermore-Well, when Mr..
Menke gets to punching this, legend
around with both hands, he is pretty
merciless, and the best and most
dignified thing Cooperstown can do
Is be satisfied with her luck and
her knicknacks and stop singing
names at Sleuth Menke. Coopers-
town has the celebration. Menke
has the facts. It's dead heat in
my book.
If the truth about the founding
Of baseball ever Is told it will stag
ger the English-speaking world. The
truth is that your correspondent
invented the game himself, on Sep
tember II. 1914, by rubbing two
sticks together. This attracted the
attention of Jimmy Foxx, who
needed light for his cigar, which
he had stolen from his old man.
His father discovered the theft and
| sold Foxx to>the Philadelphia Ath-
letics for $4,000.
The rest is history.