Monthly Archives: May 2020

The Fly Game

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In the May 29, 1859 issue of The Sunday Mercury, a weekly New York newspaper that extensively covered the expanding world of base ball playing, an untitled paragraph announced the possibility of a forthcoming game that would be strikingly different from all others played during the past few years: “We have heard it rumored — we do not know with what truth — that the Knickerbocker Club, of this city, will shortly play a match with the Excelsior Club, of Brooklyn, in which they will repudiate catching the ball upon the bound.” William Cauldwell, the editor of the newspaper, predicted … Continue reading →

Searching for Mary Schäffer: Women Wilderness Photography

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What may you ask does a book titled “Searching for Mary Schäffer: Women Wilderness Photography” by Colleen Skidmore have to do with Doc Adams? The description of the book is as follows: Mary Schäffer was a photographer, writer, botanical painter, and mapmaker from Philadelphia, well known for her travels in the Canadian Rockies and Jasper at the turn of the twentieth century. In Searching for Mary Schäffer, Colleen Skidmore takes up Schäffer’s own resonant themes—women and wilderness, travel and science—to ask new questions, tell new stories, and reassess the persona of Mary Schäffer imagined in more recent times. Public and private … Continue reading →

Petition Signatures Exceed 1,000

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Just recently, our petition to recognize Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams’s role as a founding father of our National Pastime exceeded 1,000 signatures. The recognition being sought is his enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The show of support via the petition demonstrates that we are successfully telling Doc Adams story. When this journey started, few had heard of the great doctor. “He’s the true father of baseball and you’ve never heard of him,” John Thorn (the Official Baseball Historian of MLB) told The Associated Press in a phone interview. John Thorn‘s book, “Baseball in the Garden of Eden“, … Continue reading →

How Did the Shortstop Position Get Its Name?

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Patrick Pinak asked this question this week in FANBUZZ in his article, “How Did Shortstop Get The Name “Shortstop”?”. Of course, everyone who knows Doc Adams’ story already new the answer. It is re-assuring that more people are becoming aware of Doc and his contributions to the National Pastime. This continues to be important in the year that Dr. Daniel “Lucius” Adams should appear on the Hall of Fame ballot for the second time. If he receives enough vote at the 2020 Winter Meetings, he will be enshrined in the class of 2021 along side a member of the 2020 … Continue reading →

Doc’s Parents

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Doc’s father, Daniel Adams MD (1773-1864) was born in Townsend, Massachusetts and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1797 and from the second class of Dartmouth Medical School in 1799. As well as being a practicing physician, he was a farmer, an author of widely used arithmetic and geography textbooks (the former was in use from 1801 to c.1864), a deacon of his Congregational church, choir master, a member of the New Hampshire Legislature, president of the New Hampshire Medical Society, and an early and frequent orator in support of temperance and abolition. In 1800, he married Nancy … Continue reading →

Yale and Harvard

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In 1830, Doc enrolled in Amherst College. In 1833, he transferred to Yale College from which he graduated in 1835.  Later that year, Doc entered Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1838.  It was at Harvard that Doc made the acquaintance of Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) where they roomed at the same boarding house. “Having nothing to do at Commencement, it will be a considerable saving of both time and money not to attend” . June 29, 1835

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Doc Marries Cornelia

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Daniel Lucius Adams and Cornelia Cook married on May 7, 1861, and remained together until Adams’ death. The couple had five children; the first, a son named Charles, died less than a month after his birth in 1864. The others, two sons (Frank and Roger) and two daughters (Catharine and Mary), were born between 1866 and 1874.   “My marriage was the crowning achievement of my life.” – Daniel Lucius Adams, MD Biographical & Historical Record of the Class of 1835 in Yale College (1881)

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Doc Adams Elected Knickerbockers’ Vice-President

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The Knickerbockers held elections annually to determine who would serve as officials. At the club’s second election, held on May 5, 1846, Adams was named the Knickerbockers’ vice president. At an April 1847 meeting, he became the president of the team, and was re-elected in 1848 and 1849. He was the leader of a “Committee to Revive the Constitution and By-Laws” of baseball in 1848.

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