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 Why is it that so many things in life are not what they appear to be; or are not how we were told they were.
How many of you grew up being told that Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown, NY in 1839?....... Yeah me too..... Well forget all that, because that was just a myth.
Over the past few years enough information has come out to disprove that notion. No that doesn't mean that they are going to move the Hall of Fame from Cooperstown, but it does mean you were duped. The truth is that Doubleday actually has only one valid link to baseball -- Hall of Famer Wade Boggs is Abner Doubleday's seventh cousin.
Much of this information has been out for a few years now and many of you may already be up to stuff on this, but the new revelations somehow eluded me as they came out. To me, the other day when I stumbled across this information, it was as if I just found out that the entire evolution thing was a farce and that God just took a crap and poof we appeared.
Abner Doubleday is probably best known as the inventor of baseball (though he was not.) In 1907, a panel of baseball experts headed by A. G. Spalding conducted a highly-publicized investigation into the origins of baseball and concluded that Doubleday had written the rules for baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York where the Baseball Hall of Fame was later constructed. The panel's work, however, was driven more by mythmaking and the desire for good publicity for the sport than by any actual study of history. Doubleday himself never claimed to have invented or even played baseball, and never mentioned the sport in his diaries, letters, or papers. He grew up near Cooperstown, but his family moved away in 1838, and by 1839, while Doubleday was alleged to have been inventing baseball at Cooperstown, he was a cadet at West Point, about 75 miles away.
 In truth, the rules modern audiences and players would begin to recognize for the game of baseball were written in 1845 by a committee headed by Alexander Cartwright -- but even by then similar games called base ball had been played for decades.
It is difficult to pinpoint when baseball was first played in America. The early development of baseball is chronicled more in myth and legend rather than in facts and history. The first and earliest written evidence of baseball in America is a bylaw written in 1791 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
The document, discovered by Society for Baseball Research member John Thorn in 2004, offers strong evidence that baseball is a unique American game, and it casts doubt on the long held belief that baseball was derived from rounders, a British game. It also raises the question of the origins of cricket, as it has been widely thought that baseball followed cricket, which was developed from a folk game known as stool ball (1085 A.D).
As far back as 2000 B.C. ball and stick type games have been played. Hieroglyphics depict ancient Egyptians playing a game similar to baseball in 1500 B.C., although there are clearly some major differences between its depiction and the modern game.
As for the United States, there is evidence of a 1791 Massachusetts by-law banned the playing of the game within 80 yards of the town meeting house. That's right kids, if they were banning the game that must have meant that they were already playing the game.
The first documented formal organization to play baseball in America was the NY Knickerbockers established on September 23, 1845. The first rules were written by Alexander Cartwright, considered to be the Father of modern baseball. However, long before this time ball playing of one sort or another was noted by many authors and in many documents.
A May 8, 1844 city Ordinance in New York City prohibits "ball" playing of any sort. Abner Doubleday was mythically said to have "invented" the game of baseball in 1839. Cartwright's role in baseball has also been questioned. Most experts and historians now agree that he was simply the first to write down the rules that had existed for quite some time. In addition, there is strong evidence that rule changes were one of the reasons Cartwright wrote them down.
There has been a lot written about the sport after the founding of the Knickerbockers, such as articles about the popularity and evolvement of the "New York Game" rules into the mainstream of baseball. The original Knickerbocker rules addressed foul lines and deleted the "plug out," which involved hitting the runner with the ball to gain an out.
They also delineated the tag-out and the force-out. Strangely, they don't provide a pitching distance or a baseline length. Forty-two paces was the actual written distance from home to second base, and from first to third. "Innings" were also not mentioned. Instead, the first team to twenty-one was declared the winner, given both teams are allowed an equal number of at-bats. The pitching method was also described as underhand, perhaps similar to town ball, another early game with English roots.
The rules may have first been written by Cartwright, but there is a long and involved history of earlier games with similar rules. Many American and opposing English claims of inventing baseball have tried to argue their positions by presenting evidence to back their claims. Despite all of this, the origin of modern baseball still remains a mystery.
After 1845, the history of baseball in America starts to be fairly clear. The rules were standardized in 1857. In 1858, the first baseball league, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), emerged. They were not considered professional players, as they received no money for their participation. However, the games were public and admission was charged to witness the games. The first documented college baseball game was played in 1859 as Amherst defeated Williams 73-32 in 26 innings in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
 In 1860, the "New York Game" was commonly referred to as "the National pastime" in many written works. Baseball gained momentum in popularity and slowly spread throughout the Country during the Civil War. Over 100 clubs were in existence when the war ended and in 1869, the world's first professional baseball team was established. The Cincinnati Red Stockings ended their first season undefeated. The NABBP split into two groups, one for the amateurs and one for the professionals. The amateur leg of the association dissolved after only a few years.
The National League, which still exists, was established in 1875 after the NABBP proved ineffective on several levels. The power shifted to the club organizations and baseball entered into an age full of conflict, remembered mostly for the dreaded player reserve clause that oppressed players and held them as "slaves" to their contracts.
Blacks and Hispanics or any other non-white players were repeatedly forced out, left out, or sent to the minor leagues. This was a shameful practice that didn't end until 1947. The Western League of Baseball Players, a minor league of the Great Lakes States area became the American League in 1899.
A new era in baseball began in 1901. It was known as the "Dead Ball Era", because of a sharp decrease in offense produced in both leagues. This era continued until the emergence of Babe Ruth in 1919.
MLB.com has put out a wonderful documentary on the history of baseball. The film is an hour, so get the popcorn out. It is worth your time. Once you start watching, you can only pause the
film, no skipping forward and no reversing. If you do either of those it restarts the film. I figured this out about 45 minutes into the film. Ugh.......
FYI - It's my understanding that this link will only be available for a limited time before they pull it. Enjoy. - Jason Lockhart
Jason is an aspiring sports journalist currently enrolled at Stanford University.
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Just wanted to share another story about who invented the game I love!