Category Archives: Recurring (2026)
The Father Of The National Game Still Living In New Haven
So far the earliest reference we have found referring to Dr. Daniel Lucius ‘Doc’ Adams, M.D. as a “Father of Baseball” in June 23, 1895. That was 12 years before the Mills Commission created the Doubleday myth and 43 years before Alexander Cartwright was elected into the Hall of Fame. This article predates the seminal Sporting News interview by 8 months. This article was i…
Continue reading →First Base Ball Game At Elysian Fields
What is often referred to as the first recorded game played under the Knickerbocker Rules (now believed to be yet another intrasquad game), took place on June 19, 1846. The Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club (aka “the New York Nine”) 23–1 in four innings. Elysian Fields First Game The enduring fame of this particular game and of its players is the product of circumstance and self-aware myth-making. As the official historian of Major League Baseball, John Thorn, has written: “The history of baseball is a lie from beginning to end, from its creation myth to its rosy … Continue reading →
Lost, Sought, And Finally Found
Nestor: A prominent secondary character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, where he appears as an elderly warrior who frequently offers advice to the other characters. The word is used to describe a wise old man, a patriarch, or the senior, most experienced leader in a particular field. Many of the artifacts of early baseball have been lost to time. Those that survive often find their way into private collections through auctions and sometimes through nefarious ways. For example, several rare baseball-related items have been stolen from the New York Public Library’s A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection over the years. Sometime between … Continue reading →
The Bat And Ball Letter
On June 15, 1832, Doc Adams received a letter from his 11-year-old sister that has become known as the “Bat and Ball letter”. In the letter his sister Nancy sent to him at school, she said, “I have not played with your bat and ball as you bid me. I forget it every morning and indeed I have not seen it since you went away”. It is the earliest known evidence of Doc’s interest in the game. Doc was at Yale w…
Continue reading →The Knickerbocker Experience
The 1858 New York Knickerbockers and Brooklyn Excelsiors We’d like to highlight an effort that brings Doc Adams and the Knickerbockers to life, The Knickerbocker Experience. It is the brainchild of Jeff “Pinetar” Kornhaas, The Knickerbocker Experience, offers an opportunity to play the game as historically accurate as possible. “Rules aren’t bent” or “exceptions made” to make it work. The intent is t…
Continue reading →A Little Knickerbocker Base Ball Club History
Knickerbocker Base Ball Club Flag On June 5, 1846, the first honorary members were elected, viz. James Lee and Abraham Tucker. At the same meeting Curry, Adams and Tucker were appointed a committee to arrange the preliminaries, and conclude a match with the New York Base Ball Club. From all the information the writer has been able to gather, it appears that this was not an organized clu…
Continue reading →Ridgefield Town School Committee
Doc Adams lived in Ridgefield from about 1865 to 1888 and was an active member of the community during that time, He was the first President of the Ridgefield Savings Bank, helped form the Land Improvement Association of Ridgefield, was a founder of the Ridgefield Library Association, was elected to the Connecticut State House of Representatives, served on the building committee that erected the new “t…
Continue reading →The Fly Game: Knickerbockers Vs. The Excelsiors
DANIEL L. “DOC” ADAMS – 4th from left. Knickerbocker and Excelsior Base Ball Clubs, August 2, 1859, South Brooklyn, N.Y. [Source for date: SABR Pictorial History Committee Newsletter, June 1999] 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 o…
Continue reading →Introducing Doc Adams
If you want to learn about Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, his life, and his contributions to our National Pastime and have a little time (about a half an hour), then check out this video presentation. If you don’t have that much time you can get a reader’s digest (e.g. social media reel) version of his baseball contributions in: Do You Know Doc Adams?
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