What did Mr. Lincoln enjoy doing?

[Liz Rosenthal]

I don't know what the ball was made of, but I seem to recall reading in more than one source that Lincoln did, indeed, play an early form of baseball. I think some people called it "town ball." Somewhere, I read a description of Lincoln actually running the bases in his long, back coat!

In general, he was regarded as a "splendid" athlete. Based on his physical talents and attributes, I think he could have been a professional baseball superstar.

What position do you think he might have been best at? Anybody? It's a little unusual for a pro-baseball player to hit for power *and* show great speed around the bases, but from what we know, I think Lincoln could have been superb at both. Also, given his athleticism, I can see him playing almost any position, including shortstop. (Hey, what a fun topic this is!)

[RJNorton]

I found some information on this topic here.

[LincolnMan]

Liz: you're are exactly right-what we call "baseball" now was called "town ball" then. Dr. Guelzo did refer to it as such. I'm thinking with Lincoln's great strength in his arms that he had to be a power hitter of sorts. Coupled with his long legs for running the bases-he must have been quite good. Roger-nice find with that article. Somehow the notion that Lincoln played baseball seems so right.

[GARY POPOLO]

I think that Lincoln would have been a great professional wrestler. I read a number of stories that in his early days on the road he was known as a great wrestler and the one to try and beat if given the chance.

[LincolnMan]

Lets have some fun with this-placing Lincoln in today professional wrestling world-what would be his gimmick? Something like "the Rail-splitter," perhaps? He would break rails over the heads of his opponants.

[My Name Is Kate]

I don't know about wrestling, but I wonder if he could have thrown a 100 mph fastball. The Cubs could have used him (had they existed then).

[LincolnMan]

He was certainly strong enough in his arms.

[LincolnMan]

As far as the game itself, Abner Doubleday could not have "invented" it-as he is commonly credited for doing- as it existed so early on in this "town ball" form.

[Laurie Verge]

From a NY Times review of a book on the history of baseball:

Debate Over Baseball’s Origins Spills Into Another Century
Ivan R. Dee/Associated Press
The 1858 New York Knickerbockers and Brooklyn Excelsiors. The Knicks’ Louis Fenn Wadsworth received belated credit for his innovations.
By JOHN THORN
Published: March 12, 2011
Recommend


Moving beyond the binary and false options of Abner Doubleday and Alexander Cartwright Jr. as the father of baseball, three better candidates emerge: Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton and Louis Fenn Wadsworth. Cartwright’s plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame declares he set the bases 90 feet apart and established nine innings as a game and nine players as a team. He did none of these things, and every other word of substance on his plaque is false.


Baseball Hall of Fame
There is evidence that Alexander Cartwright, above, and Abner Doubleday should not be credited with inventing baseball.
Adams, known as Doc, set the base paths at 90 feet, among other notable innovations, including creating the position of shortstop — eight years after Cartwright left New York in the California gold rush of 1849. Wheaton created the Knickerbocker rules by copying a set he had drawn up for an earlier ball club, the Gothams, in 1837.

As to nine men and nine innings — and perhaps even more — these may be credited to Wadsworth. A first baseman for the Gothams and the Knickerbockers from about 1850 to 1862, the mysterious Wadsworth may provide the most compelling story of all.

No one credited him as an innovator until 1907, when the Mills Commission neared the end of its three-year mandate to determine the origins of baseball. On Dec. 30, Abraham G. Mills hurriedly dictated his conclusions to his stenographer and anointed Doubleday, as per the wishes of Albert G. Spalding, whose brainstorm the commission had been.

Yet Mills took care in his final report to note a “statement made by Mr. Curry, of the pioneer Knickerbocker club” that “a diagram, showing the ball field laid out substantially as it is today, was brought to the field one day by a Mr. Wadsworth.” Despite having officially crowned Doubleday, Mills followed with queries about the identity and whereabouts of Wadsworth for nearly three months, fruitlessly.

On March 20, 1908, the commission’s conclusions were published in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide. No more was heard about Wadsworth until 1973, when Harold Peterson wrote a biography of Alexander Cartwright called “The Man Who Invented Baseball.” In it, he observed, “Mr. Wadsworth, whose Christian name, occupation, residence and pedigree remained secreted in Mills’s bosom, was never heard of” again.

Mills and Peterson believed that if Wadsworth presented a diagram, it must have been in 1845. Herein lay a crucial misunderstanding. Wadsworth was a Gotham until April 1, 1854, when he inexplicably switched allegiances (perhaps in exchange for considerations that would have made him the game’s first professional). Did he bring a diagram to the Knick field in 1854-55, when the baselines were not yet established at 90 feet and the pitcher’s distance was unspecified?

Maybe yes, maybe no. But he certainly gave us a game of nine innings and nine men, at a critical time when sentiment leaned to seven. Before the first convention of New York area ball clubs on Feb. 25, 1857, a Knickerbocker-dominated rules committee adopted Section 26, making the game seven innings and setting the minimum number of players to a side at seven. In the convention, however, on Wadsworth’s rebel motion, the assembled delegates changed the recommendation to nine.

Bu his victory spelled the end of his tenure with the Knickerbockers. Wadsworth failed to appear for a game on June 8, 1857, though he had been named to play. Six days later, he resigned; by the next month, he was again manning first base with his accustomed panache, but for the Gothams.

Wadsworth left a trail that historians and genealogical experts had been unable to pick up. Wadsworth family histories offered no clue. But by 2004, the search tools of the Internet and some proprietary databases opened a new world and, little by little, his story began to unfold.

Wadsworth was born in Connecticut in 1825 and graduated from Washington College in Hartford (now Trinity College) in 1844. Then he went to Michigan, where his well-to-do parents had bought land, and he began a legal career in Manhattan in 1848. A tempestuous character who made enemies easily, Wadsworth was little recalled in New York once his playing days were done.

He later became a judge in New Jersey; was widowed; began to act erratically in his official duties, owing to drink; and lost an estimated $300,000 (perhaps $8 million when adjusted for inflation). Wadsworth was reduced to selling newspapers on the streets until 1898, when he committed himself to Plainfield’s poorhouse. For the next 10 years, no one connected him with baseball.

Wadsworth died on March 28, 1908, eight days after publication of the Spalding guide containing Mills’s decision. An obituary in The Hartford Daily Times said, “A veritable bookworm, day after day, he would sit reading.”

“In the summer,” it continued, “he was particularly interested in following the scores of the ballgames of the big leagues, and of late years, the game was the one great object of interest to him.”

This article was adapted from the book “Baseball in the Garden of Eden” by John Thorn, a baseball historian. The book, to be published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, examines the origins of the game.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 13, 2011, on page SP11 of the New York edition with the headline: Debate Over Baseball’s Origins Spills Into Another Century..Sign In to E-Get Free E-mail Alerts on These Topics

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[LincolnMan]

Laurie: what a great background account on the origins of baseball. You rock!

[Tom Emery]

I agree -- good job, Laurie. I hadn't seen that reference, either.

I knew that Cartwright should receive the credit, and that the Doubleday thing is inaccurate. Doubleday also lied about some of the details Lewis Armistead's life, too.

---

I did this in a hurry, and realized I wrote it wrong when I saw it posted. I should have said "Cartwright is given the credit." Sorry about that one.

[Hess1865]

Reportedly Doubleday kept many diaries, and there was never a mention of baseball in any of them.
Remember, when the Baseball Hall Of Fame was founded around 1937, the growing patriotic ferver in the USA made it a logical choice to proclaim that a Civil War hero invented baseball.
I also read somewhere that Doubleday was a very argumentive person, and he fought with everyone. He was not a popular man in the Army either.

[LincolnMan]

Doubleday, from what I remember, had fallen from grace with Meade during Gettysburg. Still, he had quite a military record-having served also in the Mexican and Seminole Wars prior to the Civil War. I believe he was wounded, by the way, at Gettysburg. He also rode the train with Lincoln to Gettysburg for the cemetery dedication.

[Hess1865]

Meade was ticked off at Doubleday for some reason and after Gettysburg had Abner resassigned to somewhere in upstate NY
Lincoln got wind of this, and put Doubleday back in the main ranks, regardless of Meade's orders.
Meade was also not an easy person to get along with

[Craig Hipkins]

Laurie, great article on the origins of baseball. It is interesting to note that even the U.S. Postal Service believed that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839. In 1939 they issued a centennial postage stamp to commemerate the event.

Craig