Long has Cooperstown, N.Y., held the claim to fame of being the birthplace of modern-day baseball. This contention has earned it a permanent spot in sports history, not only as the location of Abner Doubleday's great invention, but also as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet in the spirit of the recent Yankees-Red Sox series this past weekend, I introduce another New York-Boston rivalry recently brought to my attention: the birthright of baseball.
As the story goes, baseball was "invented" by Doubleday in 1839, perhaps from the game of rounders - a variation on cricket brought over from England. For many years, Cooperstown held its claim to fame both because of Doubleday and because of a law on its books from 1816, which stated "that no person shall play at Ball in Second or West street under penalty of one dollar." These assertions have been challenged for decades, with many historians claiming that no proof exists that Doubleday ever attended a baseball game much less invented it, and that "ball" does not necessarily refer to "baseball". Given the lack of historical evidence, the story of Abner Doubleday has more or less been surrendered by baseball historians, though everyone and their mother still considers him to be synonymous with the founding of baseball.
Instead, the onus of baseball's invention rests on the shoulders of Alexander Cartwright of the New York Knickerbockers, who provides a much better-documented claim of "invention" in 1845. Given this, it is Cartwright and not Doubleday who is enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
So, despite the myth of Abner Doubleday, signs have continued to point to New York as the birthplace of baseball. But as recently reported by Doug Miller of MLB.com, new historical evidence has turned up in Pittsfield, a small town in Massachusetts, indicating that baseball may have been played there far before 1839.
While doing his research, historian John Thorn stumbled on a bylaw in the town's records dated 1791, which stated: "For the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House ... no Person ... shall be permitted to play any game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Bat Ball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other game ... with balls, within the distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House."
The bylaw is the first known reference to "baseball" (by name) in America - and it happened a good 48 years before Doubleday, and (even more importantly) roughly 54 years before Cartwright.
As it happens, Massachusetts had been playing its own version of baseball for years while the New York game developed. The Bay State game had five fielders, overhand pitching, no foul lines and the requirement that one team score 21 runs in order to end a game. In contrast, the New York game was still pitched underhand, included foul territory and had the beginnings of organized innings. In a vain attempt to preserve their sport from the quickly encroaching New York flavor, 10 teams organized a league in 1858 outside of Boston in Dedham, Mass. Eventually, however, the New York game, with Cartwright's propagandizing, won out. The Massachusetts version disappeared forever, with overhand pitching being its largest legacy.
Given all this historical information, who really claims the fame of the invention of baseball? Massachusetts certainly had a highly organized version of the game years before New York, yet the New York game, though developed later, more closely resembles the modern-day sport.
There is no definitive resolution, as both sides can be equally justified. Despite my loyalties to upstate New York, I personally have to go with Massachusetts - not only because of concrete historical evidence, but because, "Go Sox."
Ignoring my shameless and poorly justified New England fidelity, I would venture to say that the greater significance of the debate is the possibility of new fodder to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Perhaps the New York-Boston enmity goes back to this pivotal moment in history, rather than starting with the fateful Babe trade. Instead of being yet another source of contention, it might be the reason there's any contention between the two cities to begin with.
That being said, the idea that Bostonians were selling "Knickerbockers Suck" t-shirts out of the back of their horse-and-buggies decades before the sketchy guys on Yawkey Way, is unlikely. And although Cartwright was a mogul, he was certainly never the iniquitous Steinbrenner of his era. Instead, the competition between the Massachusetts and New York styles of ball was the rivalry in its infancy, and while the true birthplace of baseball will probably always be a matter of historical debate, in modern context it serves to add a new kind of fuel to the fire.
