Our petition to recognize Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams’s role as a founding father of our National Pastime has garnered 2,072 signatures!

Marjorie Adams set a lofty goal for petition signatures! Although, we did not achieve her goal, it was still a successful effort! We continue the Doc Adams education campaign in her honor.

The show of support via our petition demonstrates that we are successfully communicating Doc Adams’s story. Additionally, it demonstrates support for Hall of Fame recognition of an individual who independant historians view as an important founding father of our National Pastime. Our hope is that Doc is recognized with enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022.

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and/or shared it and Doc’s story with friends and family!!!

He’s the true father of baseball and you’ve never heard of him,

John Thorn (the Official Baseball Historian of MLB) told to The Associated Press in a phone interview.

When this journey started, few had heard of the good doctor. John Thorn‘s rediscovery of Doc Adams, research, and book, “Baseball in the Garden of Eden”, published in 2011 (built on his 1992 article “The ‘True’ Father of Baseball” in the premier issue of Elysian Fields Quarterly and the Chapter of the same name in the 1993 edition of Total Baseball) changed all that. Many things have happened in the intervening years (and here are a few):

• Development of the Doc Adams education campaign championed by Doc’s late great-granddaughter, Marjorie Adams, along with her sister Nancy Adams Downey, helping bring Doc’s story to another, broader audience.
• Doc Adams being selected as SABR’s 2014 Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend.
• Doc appeared for the first time on a Hall of Fame ballot in 2015 and fell just 2 votes short of election.
• The longest running Vintage Base Ball Festival of its kind (Old Time Base Ball Festival held at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration) renamed in his honor (Doc Adams Old Time Base Ball Festival).
• His original handwritten “Laws of Base Ball” resurfaced and sold for $3.26 million.
• The Doc Adams Birthplace Classic became another annual event in Mont Vernon, NH.
• Adams’s “Laws of Base Ball” was exhibited in the Library of Congress.
• Doc Adams has appeared in many books and articles in newspapers and magazines, podcasts, radio and TV stories, and interviews.

More and more people are learning about Doc Adams and his role in the development and growth of baseball and his glaring ommission from the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

We received support from 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 10 foreign countries.

Our goal continues to be two-fold: education and recognition! A key to our success is the continuing education campaign about Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams and his contributions to the development of the great game of baseball.

Hopefully, he will receive his long overdue honor of a plaque hanging in the Plaque Gallery in the National Hall of Fame in Cooperstown* in July 2022. #DocAdamsHOF2022!

As John Thorn wrote recently about Doc:

He 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“, Our Game

Next stop, the announcement of the 2022 Early Baseball Era Ballot, according to the Hall, “in the days immediately following the World Series” (November 8?).

The educaion campaign continues …

* – From the National Baseball Hall of Fame website: The Plaque Gallery is sacred ground for baseball fans, where the bronze plaques of the Hall of Famers line the oak walls and visitors speak in hushed, reverential tones. The dramatic arched entryway and marble columns let you know you are somewhere special.