NOTES introduction: abner doubleday and baseball’s idol of origins 1. Terry L. Beckenbaugh, “Abner Doubleday,” in Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, ed. David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler, and David J. Coles (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 611–612; Larry Tagg, The Generals of Gettysburg: Appraisal of the Leaders of America’s Greatest Battle (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Publishing, 1998), 25–27; Brooks C. Simpson and Matthew E. Van Atta, “Doubleday, Abner,” in American National Biography, ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 6:779–780; Cooperstown Crier, Sept. 30, 1999 (part of a series entitled “In Our Past,” by Tom Heitz); Mark McGuire, “The Ongoing Fable of Baseball,” New York Archives 2 (Spring 2003): 9. 2. Albert G. Spalding, “The Origin of Baseball,” Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, 1906 (Chicago: A. G. Spalding & Bros., 1906), 6 (quote); Cooperstown Crier, Sept. 2, 9, 16, and 23, 1999; Harold Seymour, “How Baseball Began,” New York Historical Society Quarterly 40 (October 1956): 369–371; Robert W. Henderson, Ball, Bat, and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games (1947; reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 170–181; David Block, Baseball before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 1–14. 3. Many of the pertinent documents, including excerpts from Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide and the commission’s final report, are reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, ed., Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825–1908 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 279–295 (quotes 284, 287). Numerous others, including the Graves-Spalding exchange and the responses to Sullivan’s queries, are in the John Doyle Papers, A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, NY. See also Block, Baseball before We Knew It, 14–16; Harry Paxton, “The Myths of Cooperstown,” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 30, 1960, 18–19, 62, 64; and Victor Salvatore, “The Man Who Didn’t Invent Baseball,” American Heritage 34 (June/July 1983): 65–67. 4. A. G. Spalding to the Special Base Ball Commission, July 28, 1907, reprinted in Sullivan, Early Innings, 291 (1st quote); Abraham Mills to Col. Edward Fowler, Dec. 20, 1907 (2nd, 3rd, and 4th quotes); Mills to William Rankin, Jan. 6 and 20, 1908; 154 n o t e s t o pa g e s 3 – 7 Rankin to Mills, June 21, 1908 (5th quote), A. G. Mills Papers, Giamatti Research Center; Henderson, Ball, Bat, and Bishop, 179–180; John Thorn, “Abner Cartwright,” Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 18 (Fall 2009): 125–129. 5. Abraham Mills, “Final Decision of the Special Baseball Commission,” Dec. 30, 1907, reprinted in Sullivan, Early Innings, 295; Rankin to Mills, June 21, 1908. 6. New York Evening Post, Mar. 20, 1908 (1st and 2nd quotes), along with numerous other such clippings, Mills Papers; Freeman’s Journal, Mar. 26, 1908 (3rd quote), transcript of article, “Origins of Baseball” file, Giamatti Research Center. 7. Albert G. Spalding, America’s National Game (New York: American Sports, 1911), 17–26; Henderson, Ball, Bat, and Bishop, 170; Block, Baseball before We Knew It, 17; Ralph Birdsall, The Story of Cooperstown (Cooperstown, NY: Arthur H. Christ, 1917), 233 (quote); John Allen Krout, Annals of American Sport (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929), 117. 8. A Century of Baseball (Cooperstown, NY: Freeman’s Journal, 1940); James A. Vlasich, A Legend for the Legendary: The Origin of the Baseball Hall of Fame (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990); George Grella, “The Hall of Fame and the American Mythology,” in Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond, ed. Edward J. Rielly (New York: Haworth Press, 2003), 151–160; Brian and Becky Nielsen, Around Cooperstown in Vintage Postcards (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000), 98; Block, Baseball before We Knew It, 17–18; Steven A. Riess, “The Lead-off Batter Who Slugged Home Runs: Harold Seymour and the Making of the History of Baseball,” Journal of Sport History 29 (Spring 2002): 136; Richard Peterson, Extra Innings: Writing on Baseball (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 125–126; Wes D. Gehring, Mr. Deeds Goes to Yankee Stadium: Baseball Films in the Capra Tradition (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004); Cooperstown Crier, Sept. 30, 1999; “Sport: Immortals,” Time, Jan. 31, 1938, 56 (quote). 9. Will Irwin, “Baseball: Before the Professionals Came,” Collier’s, May 8, 1909, 12–13; Alfred H. Spink, The National...