There’s a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, for a reputed figure in early baseball history. His name is Alexander Cartwright. He is credited for making the bases 90 feet apart, establishing nine innings as a game, and nine players for a team. He is also credited with spreading baseball throughout the United States when he left New York on his way to Hawaii. These are wonderful contributions for the man credited as The Father of Baseball. However, even though he has a plaque in the Baseball HOF, he is not the person responsible for the improvements and development of the New York Knickerbocker team. Cartwright never did any of those things the Baseball HOF in Cooperstown credits him and was not the main driving force for 1840s baseball as a founding member of the New York Knickerbocker Club. Instead, Dr. Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, a physician and graduate of Harvard Medical School, is the true pioneer of that team. While he wasn’t the only founding member of the Knicks, he is responsible for the inventions attributed to Cartwright. Furthermore, as a member of the original New York Club in 1840, he invented the shortstop position, alternating between the current position of 2nd and third base and first and second base. Adams was so respected as a leader that from 1847 to 1861 he was elected either president (six times), vice president, treasurer, or director of the Knickerbockers. He also manufactured baseballs and bats and played the game for decades, well into his forties. By 1858, as the game was coming into its own as a form of entertainment and exercise, Adams became the Chairman of the Rules Committee for the newly formed National Association of Base Ball Players. Under Doc’s leadership, the rules between the base paths to be 90 feet were passed when he was chairman of the rules committee (and not during Cartwright’s membership in the 1840s). Adams was the driving force of baseball, and he even used his scientific knowledge when he made baseballs. He realized that a more tightly stitched ball led to it traveling a further distance. In later years, Adams made the inside of the baseball with rubber using galoshes and then a tanner for the ball’s exterior. Teams around New York depended on Adams to make baseballs. Without baseball production, many clubs would have been frustrated and would not have continued the game. Adams was the glue that baseball needed during its nascent stages from 1845 to 1860 until Henry Chadwick, a British-born sports journalist, took the baton as president of the rules committee and promotor of baseball with his pen. It’s time to put Doc Adams in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Andrew J. Schiff is an author and SABR member. His book, “The Father of Baseball”: A Biography of Henry Chadwick“, was a finalist for SABR’s Seymour Medal awarded annually to the best book of baseball history or biography.

This is part of our “Speaking of Doc” series.