Baseball's Creation Myth: Adam Ford, Abner Graves and the Cooperstown Story

312 Pages·2013·6.12 MB·English

by  Brian Martin

Baseball’s Creation Myth
Adam Ford, Abner Graves and the Cooperstown Story
Brian Martin
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-0206-6
© 2013 Brian Martin. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher.
Front cover baseball image (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
  Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To my wife, Kay,
and our sport-loving kids,
Lindsey and Scott
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. A Simple Letter
2. A Son of Cooperstown
3. A Letter from Denver
4. The Doctor Moves On
5. Eleven Years in Denver
6. The Doctor Strikes Out
7. Filling a Need
8. The Myth Promoted, Exposed, Adopted
9. An Unhappy Ending
10. Cooperstown Prevails
11. Remembering the Storytellers
12. Testing a Tale
13. Grand Theft, Baseball?
Epilogue
Appendix A: A. G. Spalding’s Appeal for Information About Early Baseball
(Akron Beacon Journal, April 1, 1905)
Appendix B: Abner Graves’s Response to Spalding (Akron Beacon Journal,
April 4, 1905)
Appendix C: Adam Ford’s Letter (Sporting Life, May 5, 1886)
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
List of Names and Terms
Acknowledgments
Acknowledging the help provided to an author in the course of his or her
research comes with the risk of overlooking someone. But research invariably
leads to people who share what they know and the information for which they
are responsible. This author has found the most helpful people everywhere he
has looked and they must be acknowledged for their time and trouble. So
upfront, my sincere apologies to anyone who may have been forgotten in the list
that follows.
Special thanks are owed to David Arcidiacono, a baseball researcher from East
Hampton, Connecticut, and a fellow member of the Society for American
Baseball Research. For years, he and I have swapped information on a little-
known but intriguing aspect of baseball. When I told him about this project,
David suggested I contact Gary Mitchem, senior acquisitions editor at
McFarland.
At the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, I am
indebted to the always helpful reference librarian Freddy Berowski, whose
knowledge and skill I tapped on countless occasions. Also at the Hall, photo
archivist Pat Kelly and library Steele intern Cassidy Lent were wonderful and
patient. In Cooperstown, the village’s official historian Hugh MacDougall was
most generous, sharing his research into the life and times of Abner Graves.
Hugh’s efforts as a researcher and his writing ability are truly impressive.
Claire Graves Strashun and her daughters Barb and Edy in the Seattle area were
generous and sharing with their memories, photographs and documents. Claire,
the granddaughter of Abner Graves, passed away January 21, 2013 while this
book was in production. This was just eight days before she would have turned
92, the age at which her grandfather died. Margalyn Hemphill, the wife of one of
Claire’s grandsons (Luke), who produced a book about Graves for the family,
was also extremely kind, supportive and helpful.
I am indebted to many people in Denver. Baseball researcher Jay Sanford, with
whom I have swapped baseball research for years, has been a great supporter,
adviser and friend. If it happened in baseball in the Denver area, Jay knows it.
He also has a vast amount of material about the Negro Leagues. Ken Burns, the
documentary filmmaker, consulted Jay while making his epic series Baseball,
for good reason. Diana Copsey Adams, with her amazing genealogical and
research abilities, her kindness and her friendship, proved to be a real gem in
unearthing information and navigating the reference sources in her mile-high
city. Christie Wright, another historical researcher who went out of her way to
help, deserves a special shout-out. Also in Denver, the amazing staff at the
Western History and Genealogy Collection at the Denver Public Library bent
over backwards to help find information. At History Colorado, Sarah Gilmor
was extremely helpful. The Masons in Denver, particularly historian Claud
Dutro and James Brown couldn’t have been more kind, giving me rare access to
the fine Masonic Building in which Adam Ford once practiced and shared
membership information about Abner Graves. Wonderfully eccentric social
historian Phil Goodstein provided assistance with invaluable information about
his city. It is nice to have such friends in “high” places.
In Canada, sport historian and academic Robert Knight Barney was supportive
and helpful throughout, despite his busy and active schedule at an age when
others would have slowed down long ago. He drips with New England charm
and he is never far from some symbol of his beloved Boston Red Sox. At St.
Marys Museum in the lovely town of St. Marys I am indebted to manager Trisha
McKibbin and curators Emily Cartlidge and Amy Cubberley. Their cheerful
willingness to dig into the thick files of town history and the papers chronicling
the life of Adam Ford and his family was impressive. Also at the museum,
former curator Mary Smith proved to be a great help and valuable resource over
many years. Thank you, ladies. Larry Pfaff, historian and researcher, also
provided insight that was most appreciated.
Others deserving thanks include Susan Greer, writing consultant, editor and
friend, London, Ontario; Carl MacDonald, curator, Beachville Museum,
Beachville, Ontario; Paul Leatherdale, archivist, Upper Canada Law Society,
Osgoode Hall, Toronto; Kathryn Clark, senior communications coordinator,
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Toronto; Andrea Gunn,
Christina Archibald and Deirdre Bryden, communications and archives, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario; Donna Bame, licensing supervisor, Colorado
Department of Regulatory Agencies, Division of Registrations, Licensing and
Support Section, State of Colorado, Denver; Vicki Thornton, reference librarian,
St. Joseph Public Library, St. Joseph, Missouri; editor Bruce Winges, managing
editor Doug Oplinger and executive assistant Mary Lou Woodcock, Akron
Beacon Journal, Akron, Ohio.
Summit Akron (Ohio) Public Library, Akron; Cynthia Osteroff, manager public
services, manuscripts and archives, and Judith Ann Schiff, chief research
archivist, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Lara Medley, registrar, and
Lisa Dunn, head of reference, Colorado School of Mines, Golden; and the
Society for American Baseball Research.
Preface
This book may make some ball fans a bit uncomfortable.
It looks at an old story with new eyes, a new perspective, and it draws a
conclusion that may upset baseball traditionalists.
Baseball is a game that is near and dear to many of us. We are possessive about
it, having spent so much time playing it, reading about it and watching it.
Baseball is like an old friend. So anyone who introduces new evidence about its
fundamental underpinnings is bound to meet resistance. The game has a long
history in North America, research clearly shows. Some Americans may be
surprised at the reference to North America. The game is known as America’s
national pastime, not North America’s, after all. But the fact is, simple ball-and-
bat games were brought to the new republic and to the British colonies north of
it in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by settlers from England. Those
games were refined, developed regional differences and ultimately morphed into
the game of baseball we know today.
A parallel pastime has evolved with baseball over the years: the unending search
for its origins. Like anthropologists seeking the roots of civilization, the baseball
community has been fixated on determining who invented the modern game,
when, and where. Accepting it as an evolution of bat-and-ball games played by
English children has been difficult, if not impossible, for some Americans to
accept.
A bit more than one hundred years ago, Albert Goodwill Spalding settled the
issue, in his own words, “for all time,” in his book America’s National Game.
The former star pitcher, owner of the Chicago White Stockings, president of the
National League and head of the Spalding Sporting Goods empire wrote that
baseball captured and reflected all the best qualities of America and Americans.
He noted that a special commission (which he himself established) had traced
the origins of the game to a small village in New York state where a military
man invented it. Spalding asserted that it couldn’t have been the product of the
English, whose preferred game was cricket, he wrote, because cricket “is easy
and does not overtax their energy or their thought.”