In 1865, Doc and Cornelia moved to a home in Ridgefield, CT on Main Street (demolished in the 1950s to make way for Ballard Park). Between 1866 and 1874, Cornelia and Doc had four children: two boys and two girls. “For the higher altitude, … for my mother’s health”. Roger Cook Adams (Doc’s son) on why his family moved to Ridgefield While no longer practicing medicine, Doc became active in his new community. I…
Continue reading →Found this on the Jamaica Observer website. 1892: Despite Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, president of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, authoring documents titled the Laws of Base Ball in 1857 which established the essentials of the modern game, Alexander Cartwright is credited as the American inventor of modern baseball in 1860. Cartwright dies of natural causes at age 72 on this day. “This Day…
Continue reading →Nancy Adams Downey, great-granddaughter of Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams passed away on July 10, 2025. She was the sister of the late Marjorie Adams, whom she helped conduct a mission to raise awareness of her great-grandfather’s contributions to the early development of our National Pastime. This, with the hope of seeing him recognized with a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2021, Nancy …
Continue reading →Almost 200 years ago, today (July 9, 1827), Daniel Adams, M.D. wrote a letter to his 12-year-old son, Daniel Lucius Adams, while he was attending the Kimball Union School in Meriden, NH: “One of your greatest faults as a scholar is the want of perseverance, to struggle with little recurring difficulties; you too readily give up, before making suitable effort to overcome them. This propensity you mu…
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 →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 The enduring fame of this particular game and of its players is the product of circumstance and self-aware myth-making. As the official historian of Major League Baseball, John Thorn, has written: “The history of baseball is a lie from beginning to end, from its creation myth to its rosy … 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 →
