On January 31, 1899, Henry Chadwick wrote to the editor of the Sporting Life with reminiscences of his late friend and baseball pioneer, Dr. Daniel ‘Doc’ Lucius Adams. The letter was published on the front page of the February 4, 1899 edition. On that same day, Doc Adams was also remembered by Mr Chadwick in The Sporting News.
Continue reading →Marjorie Adams was recently interviewed by Claire Hall on the Ask Claire podcast on the Comfortably Zoned Radio Network.
Continue reading →The 1857 Convention of Base Ball Players met for the first time on January 22 at Smith’s Hotel, the headquarters of the Knickerbocker Club, with the following clubs represented: Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle, Empire, Putnam, Baltic, Excelsior, Atlantic, Harmony, Harlem, Eckford, Bedford, Narrau, and Continental. The clubs elected Daniel Adams of the Knickerbockers as president of the convention and then appointed a rules committee, made up of one member of each represented club. The convention was reported in the January 31, 1857 issue of Porter’s Spirit of the Times. The “Laws of Base Ball” Baseball Chronology
Continue reading →Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs makes a great point. Subsequent to the vote, his “Laws of Base Ball” resurfaced and sold for over $3 million. This compelling artifact surely establishes that Daniel Lucius ‘Doc’ Adams is unequivocally a key Founding Father of baseball. Coming up merely 2 votes short of election in the 2015 Pre-Integration Era Committee balloting, it would seem that this evidence, written in Doc’s own hand, should convince ALL of the members of the Early Baseball Era Committee, that Doc deserves to be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. That is assuming the Committee does their homework. … Continue reading →
The Convention met together shortly after the hour appointed, and being satisfied with each other’s personal appearance, (justly so, for most of them were splendid looking fellows) the delegates proceeded to elect a President and officers, when the following were appointed:President – Dr. D.L. Adams, of the Knickerbockers It is hoped that in December 2020, Doc Adams will again be elected. This time as a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame with induction in 2021.
Continue reading →Andrew Forbes, the author of The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays recently released an updated version with a “minor” correction. ” if you were to open both of those hypothetical copies of the book to the essay entitled “Madison Bumgarner and the Beautiful Lie,” and more specifically to pages 50 and 51, you would find that I, with the full backing of Team Invisible, have made a minor change to the text. “… … “More recent scholarship, though, has clarified things, and ousted Cartwright from the founder’s role. Most notably, the excellent John Thorn – who, as the Official Historian … Continue reading →
The 1857 Convention of Base Ball Players met for the first time on January 22 at Smith’s Hotel, the headquarters of the Knickerbocker Club, with the following clubs represented: Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle, Empire, Putnam, Baltic, Excelsior, Atlantic, Harmony, Harlem, Eckford, Bedford, Narrau, and Continental. The clubs elected Daniel Adams of the Knickerbockers as president of the convention and then appointed a rules committee, made up of one member of each represented club. This was perhaps the most important meeting in the history of baseball. It was a meeting of the baseball clubs of New York City, and unlike the previous … Continue reading →
January 3, 1899, Doc Adams passed away at the age of 85 at his home in New Haven, Connecticut. In his years playing base ball (1845-1862) in New York City with the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club), he created and developed the shortstop position (1849/50), made all the balls and supervised the manufacture of all the bats. In 1857, in his ‘Laws of Base Ball’, he set the bases at 90 feet, and proposed nine innings/nine players per side and more. You can find more of Doc’s obituaries here.
Continue reading →On December 7, 2015, the Pre-integration Era Committee announced the results of the voting on the 10 candidates on the 2016 ballot at the MLB Winter Meetings. Candidates needed to receive 12 of 16 votes (75%) for election. The committee failed to elect any one of the 10 candidates. Doc Adams received the highest vote total, just 2 shy of the required votes required for election. This was Doc’s first time appearing on a Hall of Fame ballot. Although he was not elected THIS time, being the top vote getter, so close to election, was a major accomplishment. As recently as … Continue reading →