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Much debate about the origin of baseball centered around Abner Doubleday, a Civil War general. Today baseball historians fully discount any contribution to the game by Doubleday, but as the Hall of Fame was getting ready to open, that debate was alive and well.

In the collection is this four-page testimony about Doubleday and one of the true pioneers of the game, Alexander Cartwright. This is a typed copy from February 10, 1936, the contents of which appeared in The New York Sun newspaper.

The letter purports Doubleday as, “…a man who did not care for or go into any outdoor sports.” The testimony also shows the impossibility of 1839 being the year Doubleday invented the game. “In 1839 during his plebe year Doubleday could not have been in Cooperstown as a cadet.”

It does state however that Doubleday might have invented the game in 1840, perhaps on furlough to Cooperstown. At that point, the future general had two years of descriptive geometry courses under his belt which might have, “…aided him in visualizing the proportions of a baseball diamond.”

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The second page refers to the Mills Commission whose charge was to identify the origins of baseball.

According to this page, the commission was composed of “Col. A.G. Mills, Morgan G. Bulkeley, the first president of the National League, Alfred J. Reach, George Wright, and other experts…and credited Doubleday as the man who founded and named baseball and first defined the field of play and the positions. The commission’s reasearches (sic) indicated that Doubleday took a stick and outlined on the ground the area of play. He penciled the first crude rules…”, and set forth practices still in play today.

An interesting page worth reading in its entirety.

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The third page makes mention of a witness who maintained that, “Doubleday was the captain of the boys and usually played catcher.”

The page continues, “To Alexander Joy Cartwright, sometimes spoken of as a playmate of Doubleday, is conceded the honor of having hit upon the idea of bases ninety feet apart, by pacing off thirty paces.”

The third page closes with the introduction of another key person in the formation of baseball. “There is another man besides Doubleday called the father of baseball… This is Henry Chadwick…”

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In reference to the Henry Chadwick’s role during the Civil War is this, “Chadwick was a war correspondent during the strife between the States, and he saw first hand the game take hold in a big way. He was keen on statistics…”

Indeed Henry Chadwick is credited with creating creating the box score & statistics of batting average and ERA. Truly interesting material from just before the dedication of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

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Bruce Cartwright made it his mission to illuminate his grandfather’s role in the origin of the National Pastime. To that end he would have to discount Abner Doubleday’s supposed contributions.

The younger Cartwright does this early in this two-page letter to the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce. “Before 1908 when a committee of base-ball players and others interested in base-ball decided that the game was originated by Abner Doubleday, his name had never been heard in connection with it. A similar committee or jury, today probably would not arrive at the same conclusion. After all we are only interested in facts, not deductions, conclusions, or verdicts rendered by committee. No one has ever questioned the following facts. No one can question them as they are history.”

Bruce Cartwright then goes on to detail his grandfather’s involvement with the Knickerbockers point-by-point. He also discounts the Doubleday myth.

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In the second page of Bruce Cartwright’s letter is this, “From the above facts, I know Judge Landis will agree to, you can get some idea of why Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. should be honored whenever the birth of the game of Base-ball is celebrated, and why he should be nationally recognized as “The Father of Organised Base Ball.”

Bruce Cartwright’s words would prove prophetic as Cartwright’s contributions are recognized in Cooperstown at the Hall of Fame.

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The Doubleday myth was still widely believed when this letter was written by Bruce Cartwright, grandson of Alexander Cartwright.

In this offering the younger Cartwright writes, “…I remember viewing several games…with, ‘The Father of Organized Base Ball’. On one occasion, I remember him drawing a circle in the dust with his umbrella, and then drawing a cross.”

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Perhaps a true contributor of the game’s formation, Alexander Cartwright was responsible for introducing the concept of foul territory, 90 foot bases, three outs to a half inning, a fixed batting order and the elimination of retiring base runners by throwing a batted ball at them.

In the collection is a receipt signed by Cartwright for woodworking performed June, 1883. Cartwright died on July 12, 1892 making his autograph very difficult to obtain.

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In the 19th Century, long before copy machines, letterpress copies were an option for letter writers wishing to create an exact copy of an outgoing letter. The letter to be copied was placed under the thin paper, a damp blotter was placed on top of the paper. The original letter, translucent sheet, and blotter were then pressed together, resulting in a certain amount of ink transfer to the underside of the translucent page. The resulting copy was then read through the translucent page.

Here is a letterpress copy of a letter Alexander Cartwright wrote in 1861. Interesting content about shipping and such in Hawaii, Cartwright’s home state at the time.