Well, we had hoped that Doc Adams would be on a Hall of Fame ballot for the 2nd time. The first time, in 2015 (on the 2016 Pre-integration Era ballot), Adams missed election by just 2 votes!

The Classic Baseball Era Committee has a short time to get to know the 8 candidates. They have a brief time to discuss them as a group and are heavily dependent on the historian(s) on the committee.

With previous reports of the process, we thought we would try to help the committee with their research.

Although that is no longer necessary since the Historical Overview Committee swung and missed again, snubbing Doc Adams, we’ve decided to go forward with the planned posts anyway.

The 2025 Classical Baseball Era Committee can learn more about a baseball pioneer who they were denied the opportunity to finally recognize with a plaque in the Hall of Fame.

If the Historical Overview Committee chooses to look, they can do the homework they should have done when preparing the ballot. At least, they’ll know where to look in 3 years when Doc Adams is once again for a ballot (unless the Hall changes the rules again).

Therefore, we’d like to beg forgiveness of our regular followers as in the next week as we will re-post some material that you may be familiar with.

Since the Committee is short on time, we planned on bypassing the obvious and important, “Baseball in the Garden of Eden” by John Thorn, as well as “Baseball’s First Inning” by Bill Ryczek, “The Book of American Pastimes” by Charles A. Peverelly, “Base Ball: 1845-1871” by Seymour R. Church, and “The Father of Baseball: A Biography of Henry Chadwick” by Andrew J. Schiff to name a few.

Let’s kick this off with the following links:

Doc Adams Biography

Doc Adams SABR Biography by John Thorn

2014 SABR Overlooked Baseball Legend

The “Laws of Base Ball”

If you’re looking to the internet for information on Doc Adams, you’ve come to the right place. This is arguably the best resource on Doc Adams with content from respected baseball historians, authors, and writers with citations. Feel free to contact us should you have any questions.

Where did the idea to re-post this material now come from?

“You do as much research as you can,” Blyleven said. “I know all the research I did on Wikipedia. I love the evolution of baseball, how it was formed and where you go from there. There were 10 names. Everybody was well qualified; it’s just that they didn’t go in.”

“Twins great Bert Blyleven: Veterans candidates ‘just didn’t go in’”, Mike Bernadino, Pioneer Press

So, in 2015, the research source material was Wikipedia. First off, that’s a little disturbing in and of itself. The good news is that Wikipedia’s Doc Adams information has been much improved since then. Great information can be found in SABR’s biography of Adams. However, the intent with these series of posts is in case any of the voter(s) turn to the internet to perform a search, they will find these posts and its links to data supporting Doc Adams Hall of Fame case.

“There’s a lot of work that went into it,” said Blyleven, a Hall of Fame pitcher and lead analyst on Twins telecasts at Fox Sports North. “It’s a secret ballot, and you vote and you hope. Everybody has their guys they think maybe should go in. We went over every player for a long, long time.”

The pre-integration committee met for seven hours Sunday, Blyleven said, with a short break for lunch.

“Twins great Bert Blyleven: Veterans candidates ‘just didn’t go in’”, Mike Bernadino, Pioneer Press

To put things in perspective, going over every player for “a long time” involves 16 people discussing each candidate for less than 40 minutes each. The silver lining is that since the ballot was trimmed from 10 to 8 candidates, each one should get over 50 minutes of attention this time if the meeting time remains the same.

“What really helps in something like this is the historians,” he said. “You’re going back into the 1800s. Doc Adams, who was born in (1814), what do you know about him?”

“Twins great Bert Blyleven: Veterans candidates ‘just didn’t go in’”, Mike Bernadino, Pioneer Press

So that “long time” was spent with one or two historians sharing their view on the candidates. It seems that level of expertise may have eluded the Historical Overview Committee.

“The Hall of Fame knows about this story. They know that Adams is going to be a member of the Hall of Fame at some point.”

“Baseball in the Garden of Eden”, The Oregon Historical Society, John Thorn

Doc Adams “is baseball’s most important figure not in the Hall of Fame.”

With the recent discovery of his ‘Laws of Base Ball’ we have tangible primary evidence of his genius. More than anyone else, he created our game of nine innings, nine men, and ninety-foot base paths.

“5 Inventors”, John Thorn, Our Game