page_title: Origins of baseball
section_title: Abner Doubleday myth
hierarchical_section_title: Origins of baseball / Abner Doubleday myth
caption_attribution_description: Gen. Abner Doubleday, U.S.A.
context_page_description: The question of the origins of baseball has been the subject of debate and controversy for more than a century. Baseball and the other modern bat, ball, and running games—cricket and rounders—were developed from folk games in early Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe. Early forms of baseball had a number of names, including "base ball", "goal ball", "round ball", "fetch-catch", "stool ball", and, simply, "base". In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, much like in the Nordic brännboll, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Just as now, in some versions a batter was called out after three strikes.
  Although much is unclear, as one would expect of children's games of long ago, this much is known: by the mid-18th century a game had appeared in the south of England which involved striking a pitched ball and then running a circuit of bases. "Base ball" was at least one name for this proto-baseball, although there may have been others.
context_section_description: The myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839 was once widely promoted and widely believed. There is no evidence for this claim except for the testimony of one unreliable man decades later, and there is persuasive counter-evidence. Doubleday himself never made such a claim; he left many letters and papers, but they contain no description of baseball or any suggestion that he considered himself prominent in the game's history. His New York Times obituary makes no mention of baseball, nor does a 1911 Encyclopædia article about Doubleday. The story was attacked by baseball writers almost as soon as it came out, but it had the weight of Major League Baseball and the Spalding publishing empire behind it. Contrary to popular belief, Doubleday was never inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, although a large oil portrait of him was on display at the Hall of Fame building for many years.
  Doubleday's invention of baseball was the finding of a panel appointed by Albert Spalding, a former star pitcher and club executive, who had become the leading American sporting goods entrepreneur and sports publisher. Debate on baseball's origins had raged for decades, heating up in the first years of the 20th century, due in part to a 1903 essay baseball historian Henry Chadwick wrote in Spalding's Official Baseball Guide stating that baseball gradually evolved from English game of “rounders”. To end argument, speculation, and innuendo, Spalding organized the Mills Commission in 1905. The members were baseball figures, not historians: Spalding's friend Abraham G. Mills, a former National League president; two United States Senators, former NL president Morgan Bulkeley and former Washington club president Arthur Gorman; former NL president and lifelong secretary-treasurer Nick Young; two other star players turned sporting goods entrepreneurs (George Wright and Alfred Reach); and AAU president James E. Sullivan.
  The final report, published on December 30, 1907, included three sections: a summary of the panel's findings written by Mills, a letter by John Montgomery Ward supporting the panel, and a dissenting opinion by Henry Chadwick. The research methods were, at best, dubious. Mills was a close friend of Doubleday, and upon Doubleday's death in 1893 Mills orchestrated his memorial service and burial. Doubleday had been a prominent member of the spiritualist Theosophical Society, in which Spalding's wife was deeply involved and in whose compound in San Diego Spalding was residing at the time. Wright and Reach were effectively Spalding's employees, as he had secretly bought out their sporting-goods businesses some years before.  AAU president and Commission secretary Sullivan was Spalding's personal factotum. Several other members had personal reasons to declare baseball as an "American" game, such as Spalding's strong American imperialist views. The Commission found an appealing story: baseball was invented in a quaint rural town without foreigners or industry, by a young man who later graduated from West Point and served heroically in the Mexican–American War, Civil War, and U.S. wars against Indians.
  The Mills Commission concluded that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York in 1839; that Doubleday had invented the word "baseball", designed the diamond, indicated fielders' positions, and written the rules. No written records in the decade between 1839 and 1849 have ever been found to corroborate these claims, nor could Doubleday be interviewed (he died in 1893). The principal source for the story was one letter from elderly Abner Graves, who was a five-year-old resident of Cooperstown in 1839. Graves never mentioned a diamond, positions or the writing of rules. What's more, his reliability as a witness was challenged because he spent his final days in an asylum for the criminally insane.  Doubleday was not in Cooperstown in 1839 and may never have visited the town. He was enrolled at West Point at the time, and there is no record of any leave time. Mills, a lifelong friend of Doubleday, never heard him mention base
caption: Abner Doubleday
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2218", "Image ImageLength": "3201", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "1400", "Image YResolution": "1400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:05:07 14:25:59", "Image Artist": "Library of Congress", "Image ExifOffset": "268", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "406", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4705", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2218", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3201"}