Q: How did Cooperstown, N.Y., become the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame?
—Kathy McDonough, Peachtree Corners
A: Albert Spalding, who founded Spalding sporting goods, formed a panel, called the Mills Commission, in 1905 to determine the origin of baseball after a 1903 article stated the sport had come from the British sport of rounders. The commission, two years later, concluded that Abner Doubleday had "invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown," the Baseball Hall of Fame states on its website.
Doubleday, who also was a decorated Union officer in the Civil War, it was said, based baseball on an early sport called town ball, which had been played in Cooperstown. Stephen Clark, whose family owned several businesses in the town, came up with the idea of a hall of fame there and received the support of National League president Ford Frick.
The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class of Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner in 1936 and the Hall of Fame officially opened in 1939. Later, it was determined that Doubleday was at West Point, not Cooperstown, in 1839. Also, the origins of baseball are thought to date to the 18th Century, according to the Hall of Fame, and that Alexander Cartwright “developed rules in the 1840s that are the basis for the modern game.”
Andy Johnston wrote this column. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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