On July 31, 2014, Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams (1814 – 1899) was selected as the 19th Century Overlooked Baseball Legend by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). This recognition came in the bi-centennial of his birth. Each year SABR honors a 19th century player, manager, executive or other baseball personality not yet inducted into the National Baseball Hall of…
Continue reading →Doc Adams’ “Laws of Base Ball” (page 1) In 2018, The Library of Congress hosted the Baseball Americana exhibition. The ‘Laws of Base Ball” authored by Doc Adams was the centerpiece of this major, year-long exhibition. The exhibition explored baseball’s past and present and how the game forged a sense of community for players and fans across the country. “The founding documents of…
Continue reading →It’s hard to believe that we lost Marjorie Adams, great-granddaughter of Dr. Daniel Lucius ‘Doc’ Adams and his greatest advocate back in 2021. Although we miss her dearly, today, we remember happier times as we keep her dream alive. Marjorie’s tireless efforts to spread the story of her great-grandfather, Doc Adams, enlightened and inspired many baseball fans. She conducted a campaign to educate people…
Continue reading →Doc Adams’ Handwritten “Laws of Base Ball” The Oregon Historical Society’s Baseball’s Magna Carta: Setting the Rules of America’s Game Exhibit opened on July 1, 2016. The public debut of the “Laws of Base Ball” authored by Doc Adams which sold, at auction, for a baseball document record $3,263,246. The papers were first exhibited in Portland because the new owner, who choo…
Continue reading →So far the earliest reference we have found referring to Dr. Daniel Lucius ‘Doc’ Adams, M.D. as a “Father of Baseball” in June 23, 1895. That was 12 years before the Mills Commission created the Doubleday myth and 43 years before Alexander Cartwright was elected into the Hall of Fame. This article predates the seminal Sporting News interview by 8 months. This article was i…
Continue reading →Nestor: A prominent secondary character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, where he appears as an elderly warrior who frequently offers advice to the other characters. The word is used to describe a wise old man, a patriarch, or the senior, most experienced leader in a particular field. Many of the artifacts of early baseball have been lost to time. Those that survive often find their way into private collections through auctions and sometimes through nefarious ways. For example, several rare baseball-related items have been stolen from the New York Public Library’s A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection over the years. Sometime between … Continue reading →
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. Doc was at Yale w…
Continue reading →On January 14, 1899, The New York Clipper reported the passing of Dr. Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams—recognizing that he “took a prominent part in arranging the new codes of playing rules.” That wasn’t hindsight. That was written then— by those who witnessed the game’s formation in real time. Now, more than a century later, history speaks again. With the imminent debut at …
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