Perry: Oregon Historical Society lands display of baseball’s ‘Magna Carta’
From Douglas Perry at The Oregonian on June 1, 2016:
Abner Doubleday is not the father of baseball. That much is now widely acknowledged. The Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York, because it was believed the Civil War general invented the game there. But the hall itself has labeled that claim “The Doubleday Myth.” He didn’t invent the game in Cooperstown or anywhere else.
Some modern sports historians have given credit for baseball’s creation to Alexander Cartwright, who helped found the influential 19th-century team the New York Knickerbockers. Others back journalist Henry Chadwick or early player Louis Fenn Wadsworth for the honor.
“One of the things that distinguishes baseball from football and basketball is there is no clear inventor of the game,” Chadwick biographer Andrew J. Schiff told the New York Times in 2010.
That view is evolving — thanks in large part to recently discovered papers that will be publicly displayed at the Oregon Historical Society for the first time anywhere.
The artifacts will be exhibited in Portland from July 1 to October 9.
Read the full article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/06/oregon_historical_society_land.html#incart_river_index
- Related link: Read the SABR biography of Doc Adams, by John Thorn
Originally published: June 2, 2016. Last Updated: June 2, 2016.