Abner Doubleday is commonly thought of as the father of American Baseball. It’s a history worth celebrating, especially on the Saratoga County native’s birthday. But the line between history and myth isn’t always so clear.
Off Ballston Spa’s main drag sits a little yellow house with a historical marker identifying the birthplace of perhaps the most famous person to have ever come out of the village: Abner Doubleday, born on this day in 1819.
Thing is, Doubleday was actually born up the street in a house that was torn down and turned into a parking lot. But so it goes with Doubleday’s legacy: The man commonly thought of as the father of American baseball may well be worth remembering, even as the lore surrounding him has a way of overshadowing what’s true.
Just ask John Cromie. He purchased what’s come to be known as the Doubleday House in the ’90s, with its historical marker already firmly planted.
“At the time that that was put up, the research hadn’t been done. My wife and I did the research at the Library of Congress after we purchased the property,” said John Cromie.
For instance, the Cromies discovered that a famous Doubleday tale – that he fired the first shots of the Civil War at the Battle of Fort Sumter – might not be quite accurate.
“Did he really fire the first shot at Fort Sumter? Now, his battery did, OK? But I believe the orders were not to fire,” said Cromie. “So, did he purposely countermand his commanding officer? Or, did his crew get over-zealous?”
Doubleday’s dubious history continues to his legacy as the father of American baseball – a game early historians thought Doubleday invented during his time in the Army.
“From my understanding there was a commission to determine the origins and on that commission was a fella by the name of Clark from Cooperstown. And he’d heard this fella saying ‘oh, I remember Abner Doubleday coming and laying out the bases and all that type of stuff. But Clark said ‘wow, I can bring a lot of people to my hometown and I can exploit this.’ So he pushed it and he succeeded in getting the commission to determine that this major general of the Civil War devised the rules for baseball. And I’ve read one author who said probably Abner Doubleday did not know a baseball from a kumquat,” said Cromie.
Though this theory has since been disproven, and historians now point to Alexander Cartwright as the proper inventor of baseball, Doubleday’s dubbing stuck. Cooperstown, New York, is still the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and one of three Doubleday Fields.
And the Doubleday House in Ballston Spa still celebrates the great American pastime. Looking around, there are blueprints for early model baseball gloves and catchers’ helmets. The fireplace is surrounded by wooden baseball bats. Yankees paraphernalia line the walls.
These days, the Doubleday house doubles as a taproom run by Mike Schaffer. When he first started serving beers out of the historical home, he had no idea that Doubleday’s links to baseball were less-than-true.
“And then being here for a while, you talk to folks like John and other historians who know all the details. But there's a gentleman who comes in once in a while, he's originally from England, and I was chatting with him about it one day, an older gentleman, and he said, ‘it's kind of like our folk tales.’ He said it's like Robin Hood, or, you know, what have you. He goes it's a lot of mythology, a lot of stories on stories, but there's a kernel of truth here and there, somewhere, and it just becomes a folk tale.’ And he said it's pretty neat, in his own words, he said, it's pretty neat that your country is old enough now that you have mythology and folktales. And I love that,” said Schaffer.
Schaffer still leans into the baseball décor. After all, he’s got to sell a drink somehow, and he’s not about to ruin the fun for folks who haven’t caught on.
“So, I go two ways about it. If someone comes in and is just glorifying and enjoying being here, I won't burst that bubble at all. You just enjoy it. And because I enjoy every time I walk in, just enjoy it. And you also get the folks who got to come in and it's almost never antagonist. It’s like with a twinkle in their eye, will say, ‘you know, he didn't really invent baseball or, you know, blabbity blah.’ And then I'll give my little spiel, like I did to you about folktales, or just, you know, the actual guy was pretty interesting. He was a civil war general. He helped invent cable cars, like baseball thing or not. This is a pretty amazing place with a pretty amazing guy,” said Schaffer.
At nearby Skidmore College, Asian Studies professor Benjamin Bogin has been pouring over the history of Doubleday after learning of his involvement in the Theosophical Society – a major 19th century religious movement that was prominent in upstate New York.
“More recently, I found that in an obituary that was published shortly after his death in 1893 he's described by the author as a genuine Buddhist. And that really captured my attention because this would be one of if not the earliest published reference to a non-asian American as a Buddhist,” said Bogin.
For Bogin, Doubleday’s connection to Buddhism can actually help us understand the relationship between history and myth.
“Buddhism is based on an understanding that nothing arises independently. Everything exists in an inexplicable and inconceivable, complex network of interactions and causes and effects. So, from that perspective, the idea that anyone invented baseball is already preposterous, right? We know historically that no one invented baseball. No one actually invented anything,” said Bogin.
Bogin argues if you set aside strict adherence to historical accuracy, you’d be hard pressed to find a more fitting father of baseball.
“He was a deeply committed abolitionist at a time when many American heroes so called were protecting slavery and the he was so committed to abolition that there's many of his contemporaries when he was serving the Union Army in the south, really felt that he had gone too far in expressing these abolitionist views. And he was on the right side of history. And at this moment in American history when we're thinking about what it means to be American. I think more than ever, we should really be celebrating Abner Doubleday for who he was, and celebrate him as the founder of baseball, although we know that there is no founder of baseball. I think that it's perfectly fine to do both of those things and to recognize that it's the best story that we have,” said Bogin.
