ON THIS DATE: (June 5th) IN 1846: Doc Adams was appointed to a committee with teammates, Duncan Curry and William Tucker to arrange a game with the New York Base Ball Club. That game would take place two weeks later. IN 1855: The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club played the Eagle Base Ball Club in Hoboken, NJ. It lasted four innings.Final score: KBBC 27 aces, Eagles 14 aces. Doc Adams made 3 runs (aces) and 3 hands (outs).
Continue reading →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 →
It is only 5 weeks until Marjorie Adams delivers her “Doc Adams: A Founding Father of Baseball” presentation at SABR 47, the Society of American Baseball Research’s annual convention to be held this year in NYC. For details on her presentation, check out our “Marjorie Adams to Deliver Research Presentation at SABR 47” post. To register for the convention visit SABR.
Continue reading →Marjorie Adams, great-granddaughter of Doc Adams, will be delivering a research presentation, “Doc Adams: A Founding Father of Baseball” at SABR 47 on June 29 in New York City. The convention runs June 28 through July 2 and will be held at the Grand Hyatt New York. “The annual SABR convention, which is open to all baseball fans, includes top featured speakers from around the baseball world — front-office executives, players, managers, scouts, journalists, historians, and analysts — innovative panel discussions, groundbreaking research presentations, major-league games, the SABR Trivia Contest, the Awards Reception, and most of all, the opportunity to … Continue reading →
The Knickerbockers held elections annually to determine who would serve as officials. At the club’s second election, held on May 5, 1846, Adams was named the Knickerbockers’ vice president. At an April 1847 meeting, he became the president of the team, and was re-elected in 1848 and 1849.[40] He was the leader of a “Committee to Revive the Constitution and By-Laws” of baseball in 1848.
Continue reading →On April 24, 2016, the last hours of the auction for the “Laws of Base Ball” authored by Doc Adams lived up to its billing and did not disappoint as the closing bid came in at $3,263,246 setting a new record for the highest priced baseball document. “Adams’s hand in the sport’s early rule-making is not a revelation; instead, it is the physical record of his central role memorialized in the three surviving pages of his document.” This compelling artifact surely establishes that Daniel Lucius ‘Doc’ Adams is unequivocally a key Founding Father of baseball and deserves to be enshrined … Continue reading →
April 7, 1849, Doc Adams was elected to his third term as President of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club in New York City. The Club’s meeting was held at Abell’s, 474 Broadway.
Continue reading →Doc Adams became president of the Knickerbockers for the fourth time, winning an election held at the club’s April 5, 1856, meeting.
Continue reading →The 1857 Convention of Base Ball Players met for the second and final time on February 25 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 … Continue reading →
Harold Uhlman recently wrote a very interesting article on Think Blue LA titled “MLB has more than one Daddy” that explores the origin of baseball. It illustrates the misinformation of the past creation myths and shows that people are interested in the truth about baseball’s history. The story of Doc Adams and his contributions to the game continues to spread and will hopefully result in his election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020. The article is definitely worth a read.
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