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The Doubleday Myth The Doubleday Myth by Dr. James A. Vlasich Southern Utah University Cedar City, Utah Delivered as the Faculty Honor Lecture at SUU December 3, 1992 The Doubleday Myth by Dr. Jrunes A. Vlasich Southern Utah University Cedar City, Utah Delivered as the Faculty Honor Lecture at SUU December 3, 1992 Southern Utah University Southern Utah University, located in Cedar City, Utah, is a fully sta supported comprehensive four-year university. Established in 1897 by the Utah State Legislature, the University is the only such institution in the nation literally founded by an entire community. Townspeople labored throughout the winter of 1897-98 to build Old Main and place the university in operation. Today, the University consists of four colleges: Arts, Letters and Humanities, Business, Technology and Communication, Education and Science. The student body, numbering more than 4,500, represents all comers of the nation and more than a dozen foreign countries. Full­ time undergraduate students are evenly divided between male and female students. The campus, located on 115 acres in the center of Cedar City, Utah, has 36 buildings. The University also owns an 800-acre ranch and rangelands totalling 2,500 acres. Affiliated with the University are the world-renowned Utah Shakespearean Festival and the American Folk Ballet, indicative of SUU's desire to augment its academic offerings with a broad-based effort to culturally enrich its students, the university community, and the populace at large. SUU prides itself on the quality of its instruction. A low faculty-stu­ dent ratio (1:22) aids in this pursuit. In all endeavors, the University seeks to distinguish itself as an institution devoted to excellence. The Distinguished Faculty Lecture The Distinguished Faculty Lecture has been established to encourage and to give recognition to scholarly endeavor. In addition to presenting the lecture at a public convocation, the recipient of the award receives an honorarium of $1,000. The lecture is printed, bound, and placed in the Special Coll&tions of the Southern Utah University Library. Originally a joint undertaking of the SUU Faculty Senate and President Gerald R. Sherratt, the Distinguished Faculty Lecture is now funded by the Grace Tanner Center For Human Values. The selection committee has established the following criteria for the selection of the Distinguished Faculty Lecturers: (1) Interested faculty members must present to the committee a one­ page 250-word abstract of the proposed lecture; and (2) the topic and lecturer must be intellectually stimulating, scholarly, and must have a broad appeal to the University community. The Distinguished Fa:ulty Lecture shall be awarded to one faculty member each year, with the presentation being given as part of the University's Convocation Series in the month of December. James A. Vlasich Associate Professor James A. Vlasich has taught history at Southern Utah University since 1981. He holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics from Southern Illinois University and in southwest studies from Fort Lewis College. He received his master's and do('.toral degrees from the University of Utah. Along the way he has worked in such diverse occu­ pations as radio station manager, computer programmer, aerospace engineer and physics lab instructor. In 1986 he was named teacher of the year at SUU and his work regarding the origins of baseball and its Hall of Fame have brought him increasing recognition over the past several years. He appeared on a special edition of the NBC Today show with Bryant Gumble for the 50th anniversary of the Baseball Hall of Fame in June 1989 and his research on the subject was cited that month in an issue of Sports Illustrated. Also that month he was keynote speaker for the Baseball and the American Culture Symposium in Cooperstown, New York, site of the Hall of Fame. He earned the SUU Award for best published article of 1992 for his "Alexander Cleland and the Origin of the Baseball Hall of Fame." In 1990, his book A Legend for the Legendary: The Origin of the Baseball Hall of Fame was published. He is currently at work on his second book, Pueblo Indian Agriculture. The Doubleday Myth by James A. Vlasich, Southern Utah University If you ask any American who invented baseball, the answer you'll most often hear is Abner Doubleday. He would also cite Cooperstown, New York, as the place of origin and 1839 as the year of its inception. Only the more knowledgeable followers of the game's his­ tory will disagree with these conclusions. It's no wonder there is confu­ sion, since all three conclusions are false. A more significant question is, who invented Abner Doubleday? More importantly, how did the story concerning his alleged connection with baseball's beginning become fixed in the minds of fans throughout the country? Finally, why do so many followers of the sport cling to the myth, and what consequences does the story have on the game's institutions and history? The Doubleday myth resulted from a friendly debate between two men who were intimately involved in 19th century baseball - Henry Chadwick and Albert G. Spalding. The former was the most highly respected sports writer in the early history of baseball. An immigrant from England in the mid-nineteenth century, Chadwick covered games, compiled vast statistics, and even created the box score. Through his newspaper articles, he increased the public's knowledge of the sport and welded baseball into an American tradition. He devoted fifty years of his life to the game's literature and, by the time of his death in 1908, was widely recognized as the "Father of Baseball." 1 On the other hand, Spalding became the ultimate baseball entre-, preneur of the late nineteenth century. Originally a player for the Chicago White Stockings, he rose dramatically in the ranks to manager, owner, co-founder of the National League, and originator of the major sporting goods firm that now bears his name. Always the businessman, Spalding realized that with the closing of the frontier, a new safety valve was needed to vent the frustrations of an increasingly complex, industri­ alized society, and he was at the cutting edge of exploiting this need for profit. One reason for his notoriety and influence was that he received exclusive rights from league officials in 1876 to publish an annual sup­ plement known as the Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide. 2 His credi­ bility was greatly enhanced when Chadwick became its editor five years later. Gradually, the Guide became the bible of baseball fans and exert­ ed great influence on the game's followers throughout the country. The argument over the origin of the game commenced in the D1D Spalding Guide of 1903 and became baseball's version of the Scopes monkey trial: Spalding represented William Jennings Bryan and Chadwick took the role of Clarence Darrow. The editor believed that the national pastime resulted from a long evolutionary process of build­ ing one game upon another. These contests were known by a variety of names, including old cat, poisoned ball, rounders, and town ball. The rules were similar and it was difficult to tell where one might have start­ ed and the other left off. Chadwick, however, believed that 'town ball' was an Americanized version of the old English game of 'rounders' which dated to the seventeenth century; baseball was merely 'town ball' with certain modifications. All three games were played with a bat and ball and required a four-sided field with a base at each comer. In addi­ tion, all assumed that a runner was out if he was struck by a thrown ball; this rule continued to apply until 1858. In that year, the National Association of Baseball Players was formed, and it adopted a printed code of playing rules. Chadwick felt that this action was a benchmark in the organization and professionalization of the sport.3 Spalding, on the other hand, was not about to admit that America's most prominent game evolved from any kind of contest origi­ nating outside the country. He therefore decided to act as the protago­ nist in a classic contest between evolutionists and creationists. He accepted what has become known as the 'immaculate conception theory' of the national pastime. As he saw it, baseball was a unique sport that originated in this country and became part of the American identity. He had long ago adopted the position that the game encouraged competi­ tion and fair play, and that these attributes fit well into the national tra­ ditions of democracy and capitalism. He reasoned that if baseball were at least partially responsible for developing traditional American charac­ teristics, then the game must be a purely national concept. Many people found this creation theory acceptable because it coalesced with the growing rise of nationalism at the turn of the century. Spalding's pro­ nouncements came at a time when the United States was expanding as an industrial and imperialistic power. To deny the native roots of America's foremost game was equivalent in the minds of many citizens to ideological blasphemy. More important for Spalding were promotional possibilities of encouraging a well publicized national debate about the game's origin. He felt that by keeping the argument alive in his own magazine, he could reap financial benefits. Whether or not Americans would agree with him, his notoriety and wealth could only be enhanced by an argu­ ment presented in the Spalding Guide.4 In the 1905 edition, he chal­ lenged Chadwick's remarks. Not satisfied with his formal proclamation, Spalding decided to solve the origin question in a typically American fashion-form a committee. The committee would either verify or 020 renounce his conviction, and he promised it would collect every shred of evidence to make an impartial decision.
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