A new discovery pushes the date of the creation of modern baseball back to 1857 from 1860. It also recognizes a new codifier of the rules:
The 1857 documents titled ”Laws of Base Ball” establish the essentials of the modern game: The distance of the base paths is 90 feet, the length of the game is nine innings and nine players are in the field.
And they do it three years earlier than the 1860 birth date now recognized.
The documents were authored by Daniel Lucius ”Doc” Adams, making him the founding father of America’s pastime, not Alexander Cartwright, who now is credited.
”He’s the true father of baseball and you’ve never heard of him,” Thorn, a consultant on the sale of the papers, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
It looks like Adams set the rules, but Cartwright wrote them down for posterity. I guess this is like the Shakespeare plays. The plays were known but not published publicly until after the author’s death. That was to protect the intellectual property. I doubt Adams realized that game would grow to be the national pastime.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1NdcF9h
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