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BASEBALL'S ORIGINS.
Term Paper ID:26135
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Essay Subject:
Invention by Abner Doubleday & other possible sources, team sponsorship, earliest amateur, semi-pro & pro teams, increase of business aspects.... More...
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5 Pages / 1125 Words
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Paper Abstract:
Invention by Abner Doubleday & other possible sources, team sponsorship, earliest amateur, semi-pro & pro teams, increase of business aspects.
Paper Introduction:
Baseball is called the Great American Pastime, and its history has taken place during the second half of the history of the nation. Much of that history, at least in its early manifestations, is in dispute. Baseball itself has become a source of legend. Baseball has also developed as an example of American big business, a game oriented toward the mass media, a unifying force in some cities and states, and an entertainment for millions of people that is much more.
Baseball begins at the end of the nineteenth century, purportedly through the efforts of a man named Abner Doubleday, a West Point graduate, a Civil War general, and later a contributor to newspapers and magazines. Doubleday never mentioned baseball in the articles he wrote and never claimed to have invented the
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Baseball has also developedas an example of American big business, a game oriented toward the massmedia, a unifying force in some cities and states, and an entertainment formillions of people that is much more. However,Spalding was by this time convinced that a game that so fundamentallyrepresented American values had to be of exclusively American origin and sotook offense at Chadwick's claim. Baseball in this century has transformed itself into a huge andhighly organized business involving massive amounts of money for the ownersand players, demanding more and more money from fans as a result. Baseball became a national sport and a national icon in theProgressive Era: "Its internal legal and economic structure, its businessexpectations, its conception of city ballparks, its attitudes on race andethnicity, its myths, its aspirations, and its idealized image of itself asa sport and a "pastime" for its followers were characteristic of that era"(White 6-7). City newspapers began publishing stories about these teams(Seymour 213-214). (1996). Industrial managers of the timedid not change their system of working for the benefit of workers butinstead tried to direct the leisure time of those workers into approvedchannels outside of the workplace or in connection with it. NationalLeague president A.G. Henderson, who published a refutation of theDoubleday story in 1937 (Zoss and Bowman 43-44). Baseball took off as a national game in the 185 s, in part as arecreational activity for factory workers. Mills spoke to the effect that baseball had beenestablished as a uniquely American phenomenon and not as a game descendedfrom the English rounders or any other foreign game, as many believed atthe time. In 19 5, Henry Chadwick, then the oldest and most respectedjournalist of baseball and long the editor of Spalding's Base Ball Guide,wrote an article describing his own childhood playing rounders in England,and he stated then that rounders was the game from which baseball evolved.He said the game developed its distinctively American character when therules were codified by the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in 1845. Adepartment store might organize a league within the company, as withMarshal Field's in Chicago (Seymour 214-216). At the same time baseball's fields and parks, the leisurely pace of the game, and its being an outdoor, daytime spectacle invoked rural and pastoral associations that were particularly evocative to a generation of Americans confronting an increasingly urbanizing and industrializing environment (White 7).However, baseball also developed many of the less admirable qualities ofbig business as the century progressed, standing as a game taking anintegrationist stance toward American ethnics while also excluding blacks,isolating itself from the courts and congress even though many of itspractices seemed to violate antitrust laws, and transforming itself from aworking-class image to one that would appeal to all sectors of Americanyouth (White 7). The association of Doubleday's name with baseball was not yet made in1893 when a banquet was held at Delmonico's in New York City to celebratethe return of A.G. There is no evidence that such an event took place andconsiderable evidence that it did not. First, theProgressive ethos was valuable in establishing the game's status as acultural icon: Baseball grew up with America's cities, its teams becoming a focus of civic pride and energy. Other things that Graves did saysuggest that rounders was indeed the origin of baseball, such as the factthat in Doubleday's version there were eleven men on a side (as inrounders) and that anyone getting the ball could put a man out by hittinghim between bases (also a rule in rounders). Others of this type included theFrontier Baseball Club of Leavenworth, Kansas and the Lowells of Boston.Sporting goods houses were natural sponsors of baseball teams. Creating the National Pastime.Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Mills did not mention Doubleday. In the decades before 19 , baseball playamong workers changed from self-generated play to company-sponsored semi-pro teams, and factory or neighborhood might then form the basis for thesocial life of the workers and their families. Much ofthat history, at least in its early manifestations, is in dispute.Baseball itself has become a source of legend. He thus created a special commissionheaded by Mills to "discover" that baseball was entirely an American game.The report that emerged in 19 7 consisted of four letters and anintroduction. Many have challenged thelegend, such as Robert W. The earliest amateur teams, such as the New York Knickerbockers,consisted mostly of young businessmen. New York:Oxford. However, in this century the close connection with theProgressive ethos has had two quite different effects. Edward. The growing importance of the game is seen in the creation of new"permanent" ballparks in major league cities between 19 8 and 1923. Baseball begins at the end of the nineteenth century, purportedlythrough the efforts of a man named Abner Doubleday, a West Point graduate,a Civil War general, and later a contributor to newspapers and magazines.Doubleday never mentioned baseball in the articles he wrote and neverclaimed to have invented thegame. Baseball wasone of the ways of doing this. Zoss, Joel and Bowman, John. Baseball is called the Great American Pastime, and its history hastaken place during the second half of the history of the nation. White, G. References Seymour, Harold. Spalding and his all-stars from a global baseball tour.Among those in attendance were Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt. NewYork: Macmillan. Baseball: The People's Game. Theimage of baseball has suffered somewhat from its current image ofmillionaire players working for billionaire owners, but baseball remains ahighly popular form of entertainment. One letter from Abner Graces, cited as a "reputablegentleman" but who was also a man who killed his wife and ended his days inan institution for the criminally insane, cited Abner Doubleday but did notgive the sort of details that Spalding and Mills would later ascribe tohim, including the assertion by Spalding that Graves "was present whenDoubleday first outlined with a stick in the dirt the present diamond-shaped Base Ball field" (Zoss and Bowman 43), an event said to take placein 1839. (199 ). (1989). Baseball is also not mentioned in any of his 67 diaries. Diamonds in the Rough. Employers at first opposedafter-work and lunchtime play during the baseball fever of the 185 s and186 s, but soon owners saw a way of controlling workers by owning teams.After the Civil War, there was an economic revolution which accelerated thedevelopment of great industrial firms, and baseball thrived in thisatmosphere. Themodern economic and organizational structure of baseball came into being in19 3 with the National Agreement after a period of interleague wars in the19 s. Hisobituary in the New York Times does not mention baseball: It may be that he was an extraordinarily modest man who did not choose to take credit for his great invention, but as far as anyone has yet been able to discover, his name was never in any way associated with baseball during his lifetime, and it seems reasonable to conclude that Abner Doubleday went to his grave in 1893 without any idea that his name would forever be linked with the invention of baseball (Zoss and Bowman 41).
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