From the Editor: Baseball's Creation Myth…And
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FROM THE EDITOR DAVID A GOSS, OD, PHD FROM THE EDITOR: BASEBALL’S CREATION MYTH…AND OPTOMETRY’S CREATION MYTH? In the opening years of the 20th first optometry school at a university century, sporting goods magnate started at Columbia in 1910. Or when A.G. Spalding organized a panel of retinoscopy gained in popularity in the baseball luminaries to establish a early 20th century. narrative for the origins of baseball, Those are among the numerous hopefully showing, like he believed, pivotal events in optometry around that baseball was a uniquely American the beginning of the 20th century. game, rather than being derived But Charles Prentice was practicing from the English game of rounders. optometry before he started pushing In 1908, the panel’s conclusions for a licensure law, as was his father were published in Spalding’s annual James before him. John McAllister, Jr., baseball guide. They reported that of the prominent Philadelphia optical the game of baseball was invented family, and others, were doing vision by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, testing for spectacles in the mid-19th David A. Goss, OD, PhD New York, in 1839. Historians have century. And the book on the use of since thoroughly debunked that myth, spectacles published in 1623 in Spain finding documents mentioning “base by Daza de Valdes clearly is describing identified early optometry (about ball” (two words) well before that the practice of optometry when he 1300-1900) as one period and modern and uncovering evidence of various talks about conditions that we can optometry (since about 1890) as earlier bat and ball games from which readily recognize as presbyopia, another. The invention of spectacles 1,2 5 baseball must have evolved. myopia, refractive amblyopia and in about 1286 in northern Italy and It seems like optometry also has a anisometropia, and when he presents subsequent advances in optical sort of creation myth. One often reads “dialogs” which we can recognize as science and vision science led to the optometric writers implying or even case reports. development of concepts for the testing of individuals for their proper explicitly stating that optometry began Henry Hofstetter noted that study near the start of the 20th century. It lenses and other components of of optometry history shows it has “an optometric procedure.6-8 A common is unclear whether they are thinking honorable heritage, albeit under the of Charles Prentice’s initial attempts view today is that the optometrists of rubrics of ophthalmic optician, sight- early optometry were unsophisticated to establish an optometry licensure testing, spectaclemaker, and other law in New York in 1896. Or maybe and lacking in knowledge, but many of identities,” and that various lines of them were accomplished individuals it was when the first organizational evidence and archival materials “clearly meeting of the American Association who also did other sophisticated work, document optometry’s centuries- such as building optical and scientific of Opticians was held in 1897 or long existence and emergence from when they changed their name to instruments, as James and Charles a prestigious and sophisticated Prentice did. the American Optometric Association handicraft to its present academic in 1919. Or when the first optometry stature, a truly proud history.”3 Hofstetter submitted that a role of state licensure law was passed in the Optometric Historical Society and Minnesota in 1901. Or when John The best way to reconcile Hindsight was “to try to dispel our Eberhardt proposed the adoption optometry’s “centuries-long existence” depressing ignorance of optometric of the terms “optometry” and with its many impactful events at the history.”3 One of the ways we can do “optometrist” in 1903. Or when the turn of the 20th century that some talk that is by educating our colleagues first proprietary schools of optics of as our beginning is the classification that our “truly proud history” extends started in the 1870s. Or when the of optometry history by Monroe Hirsch much further back than the turn of and Ralph Wick4 into periods. They HINDSIGHT: Journal of Optometry History 75 FROM THE EDITOR DAVID A GOSS, OD, PHD the 20th century. Early optometry in 3. Hofstetter HW. The OHS mission. 8. Hirsch MJ, Wick RE. The Optometric the six centuries before 1900 was just Hindsight 1996;27:17-18. Profession. Philadelphia: Chilton, as important to the people it served 4. Hirsch MJ, Wick RE. The Optometric 1968:92-122. as modern optometry has been since Profession. Philadelphia: Chilton, David A. Goss, OD, PhD then. 1968:2-3. Editor [email protected] References 5. Rosen E. The invention of eyeglasses. J Hist Med Allied Sci 1. Block D. Baseball Before We Knew 1956;11:13-46, 183-218. It: A Search for the Roots of the Game. Lincoln, NE: University of 6. Hofstetter HW. Optometry: Nebraska Press, 2005. Professional, Economic, and Legal Aspects. St. Louis: Mosby, 1948:22- 2. Thorn J. Baseball in the Garden 33. of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game. New York: Simon & 7. Gregg JR. The Story of Optometry. Schuster, 2011. New York: Ronald Press, 1965:45- 106. SPEAKING OF BASEBALL… Gowdy in Columbus, GA. at the was present, I was called down from dedication of “Gowdy Field.” The the stand to have my picture taken provenance of this photograph with Hank Gowdy at home plate. was discovered this fall as we This arrangement was made by F. processed the oral history collection P. Barr, an Optometrist then of New held in The Archives & Museum of York. Obviously, I was surprised to be Optometry. The following excerpt is called down to home plate to have from Kiekenapp’s 1970 oral history my picture taken with Hank Gowdy interview curated by The Archives & but thought that that was all there Museum of Optometry, a program was to it. Then, coming home I had of Optometry Cares – The AOA to change trains at Chicago and had Foundation (OH 2015.507.22): a six hour wait. While walking down Michigan Avenue, I saw this picture of “We Meet Hank Gowdy me shaking hands with Hank Gowdy in a bank window. I went in and asked While attending the Southeastern the banker when that picture ran out Congress at Columbus, Georgia in (it was in a United Press frame). He said March, 1925, one of the entertainment it runs out tonight. I said I happen to Ernest Kiekenapp and F. P. Barr with Hank features was a visit to a newly built be one of the men in that picture. He Gowdy. Gowdy Field, Columbus, GA, 1925. stadium to watch a pre-season Big said would like to have it and took it 2016.IMG.0166. Image courtesy of The League Ball Game. The new stadium Archives & Museum of Optometry, St. Louis, out of the frame and gave it to me. I was to be dedicated to Hank Gowdy, MO. have it framed among my other many former Catcher for the New York souvenirs.” Giants. He was known as one of In the 1925 photograph above, baseball’s all time great Catchers --Ernest H. Kiekenapp, “Autobiography,” Ernest H. Kiekenapp, Secretary and hero of the 1914 World Series. 1970 of the American Optometric The Stadium was to be dedicated as Association (1922-1957), and New “Gowdy Field”. When the word got York optometrist F.P. Barr shake around that a National Secretary of hands with baseball great Hank the American Optometric Association 76 Volume 49, Number 4, October 2018.