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Who invented baseball? |
by Kate Simmons >> more about the author
More recently, Major League Baseball historian John Thorn claimed that the title of baseball inventor should go to Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton and Louis Fenn Wadsworth. According to Thorn, Adams is the one who proclaimed the bases should be 90 feet apart, Wheaton came up with important rules of the game, and Wadsworth created the nine player and nine inning requirements.
There’s nothing like watching a good game of baseball! In fact, if you use your imagination at this very moment, perhaps you can hear the echoing whack of the wooden bat hitting the ball! Who came up with the idea of making a game out of a ball, a long bat and some bases? As it turns out, the answer to this question is not as simple as it might seem…
In the early years of the 20th century, a group of people known as the Mills Commission decided that a man named Abner Doubleday was the inventor of baseball! Although Doubleday never claimed to have invented the game, a witness said that he’d made some important decisions about the game, including designing the field! Over time people started to wonder if enough information had been gathered to name the true inventor of the sport.
Years later, another answer was in the works! In 1953, the United States Congress declared Alexander Cartwright Jr. the inventor of modern-day baseball. Cartwright is credited with placing the bases 90 feet apart, and with setting the rules of nine players per team and nine innings per game. You might think naming Cartwright as the inventor would have settled things, but the debate continues…
While there may still be questions about the inventor of the game we call baseball, perhaps enjoying this special game is just as important as deciding who started it all!
More recently, Major League Baseball historian John Thorn claimed that the title of baseball inventor should go to Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton and Louis Fenn Wadsworth. According to Thorn, Adams is the one who proclaimed the bases should be 90 feet apart, Wheaton came up with important rules of the game, and Wadsworth created the nine player and nine inning requirements.
