page_title: Abner Doubleday
section_title: Namesakes and honors
hierarchical_section_title: Abner Doubleday / Namesakes and honors
caption_attribution_description: English: Iron Spring Park, Ballston Spa NY
context_page_description: Abner Doubleday was a career United States Army officer and Union major general in the American Civil War. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg was his finest hour, but his relief by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade caused lasting enmity between the two men. In San Francisco, after the war, he obtained a patent on the cable car railway that still runs there. In his final years in New Jersey, he was a prominent member and later president of the Theosophical Society.
  In 1908, fifteen years after his death, Doubleday was declared by the Mills Commission to have invented the game of baseball. This claim has been thoroughly debunked by baseball historians.
context_section_description: There is a monument to Doubleday at Gettysburg erected by his men, admirers, and the state of New York. There is a 7-foot (2.1 m) obelisk monument at Arlington National Cemetery where he is buried. Doubleday Field is a minor league baseball stadium named for Abner Doubleday, located in Cooperstown, New York, near the Baseball Hall of Fame. It hosted the annual Hall of Fame Game, an exhibition game between two major league teams that was played from 1940 until 2008.
  The Auburn Doubledays are a minor league baseball team based in Doubleday's hometown of Auburn, New York.
  Doubleday Field at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where the Army Black Knights play at Johnson Stadium, is named in Doubleday's honor.
  The Abner Doubleday Little League and Babe Ruth Fields in Ballston Spa, New York, the town of his birth. The house of his birth still stands in the middle of town and there is a monument to him on Front Street.
  A sign at the Doubleday Hill Monument, erected in Williamsport, Maryland to commemorate Doubleday's occupation of a hill there during the Civil War, claims he invented the game in 1835.
  Mendham Borough and Mendham Township, New Jersey has held a municipal holiday known as "Abner Doubleday Day" for numerous years in the General's honor and commissioned a plaque near the site of his home in the borough in 1998, even though the borough was known as Mendham Township back then.
  In 2004, the Abner Doubleday Society erected a monument to Doubleday in Iron Spring Park, Ballston Spa, near his birthplace.
  In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Abner Doubleday was named in his honor.
caption: Abner Doubleday monument in Ballston Spa
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "DV180F", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.8.0", "Image DateTime": "2016:04:19 20:12:25", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright 2012", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/350", "EXIF FNumber": "41/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:04:18 12:29:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:04:18 12:29:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "837/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "407/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "407/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "12", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1800", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "20034", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "67", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}