Thoughts about Doc Adams:
“He’s the true father of baseball and you’ve never heard of him.”
“Well you know Doc saved baseball.”
“I indulge the hope that the ‘spirit’ you express of being with us always, may be accompanied by t…
Continue reading →In one week, as part of the Hall of Fame’s Memorial Day Weekend, Doc Adams’ handwritten “Laws of Base Ball” debuted in the Taking the Field exhibit. The “Laws of Base Ball” will be on long-term loan and on display in the National Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY thanks to their owner, Hayden Trubitt. The documents have been described by the Hall of Fame as follows: The r…
Continue reading →Do You Know Doc Adams? He was a more than a player, wrote the ‘Laws of Base Ball’, and his legacy lives on. Chapter 2: The ‘Laws of Base Ball’.
Continue reading →On January 14, 1899, The New York Clipper reported the passing of Dr. Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams—recognizing that he “took a prominent part in arranging the new codes of playing rules.” That wasn’t hindsight. That was written then— by those who witnessed the game’s formation in real time. Now, more than a century later, history speaks again. With the imminent debut at …
Continue reading →Do You Know Doc Adams? He was a more than a player, wrote the ‘Laws of Base Ball’, and his legacy lives on. Chapter 1: He Was More Than A Player.
Continue reading →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 1…
Continue reading →With the ‘Rules of Base Ball’ set to debut at the Hall of Fame, attention turns to the groundbreaking “Laws of Base Ball” and the pivotal inflection point of the 1857 convention — central to Doc Adams’ Hall of Fame case…
Continue reading →The SABR Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference was recently held on April 24-25 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY…
Continue reading →In April of 2022, Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs wrote an article on the latest restructuring of the Era Committees by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Jaffe’s article, “The Hall of Fame Shakes Up its Era Committee System Yet Again” discusses the history of the Committee rules over time, the latest changes, and an analysis of those changes and their implications. In a post since the c…
Continue reading →The fifth annual meeting of the New York Knickerbockers took place on April 7, 1849, electing new officers and adopting a blue and white uniform consisting of woolen pantaloons and flannel shirts. This color scheme aimed to project respectability, distancing the club from lower-status organizations, and has persisted in various forms.
Continue reading →
