Knickerbockers Vs. The Empires
In a game that the Knickerbockers won 37-23 vs. the Empires on June 25, 1857, Doc led off and tallied 6 runs.
Continue reading →Doc’s Yale Auto-biography
The following is from the “Biographical and Historical Record of the Class of 1835 in Yale College, for the Fifty Years from the Admission of the Class to College” published in 1881 by Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, Printers, 371 State Street, New Haven, CT.
Continue reading →The League That Failed
“The League That Failed” (by David Quentin Voigt) cuts through the haze that surrounds 19th-century baseball history, and portrays a classic, colorful era when baseball was chaotic, struggled over by players, coaches, sportswriters, fans, and owners. It recounts the stormy atmosphere after the Inter-League Wars of 1890 and 1891, when the victorious National League made a bald-faced bid to monopolize major league baseball in the United States, succeeding for eight years with the self-styled “Big League,” which dominated the game while simultaneously gaining infamous notoriety for such high-handed acts as unilaterally capping players’ salaries, failing to protect umpires from physical … 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
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.
Continue reading →“The Father of Baseball”: A Biography of Henry Chadwick
In his book, “”The Father of Baseball”: A Biography of Henry Chadwick”, Andrew J. Schiff states: “At this particular stage, only one other person, Dr. Daniel “Doc” Adams of the Knickerbockers, may have had more influence. Doc Adams was elected presiding officer of the first convention of baseball players and was credited with many of the game’s early innovations.”
Continue reading →Knickerbocker BBC 1855
The annual meeting for 1855 was held on the 7th of April. The following officers were elected for the year : A. H. Drummond, President ; E. R. Dupignac, Jr., Vice-President ; Jas. W. Davis, Secretary ; Geo. A. Brown, Treasurer. Directors—D. L. Adams C. S. DeBost, Wm. B. Eager, Jr.
Continue reading →A Little Knickerbocker Base Ball Club History
On June 5, 1846, the first honorary members were elected, viz. James Lee and Abraham Tucker, At the same meeting Curry, [Doc] 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 club, but merely a party of gentlemen who played together frequently, and styled themselves the New York Club. “The Book of American Pastimes”, Charles Peverelly (1866)
Continue reading →Biographical Dictionary of American Sports
David L. Porter provides a biography of Doc Adams in his book, “Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: A-F”.
Continue reading →The Fly Game
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 →