A pitch for Doc Adams

COOPERSTOWN - On Thursday, Aug. 15 at 4 p.m. at historic Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, two clubs from the Delaware County Vintage Base Ball Association - the Mountain Athletic Club of Fleischmanns and the Polecat Base Ball Club featuring the Hamden Nine from Hamden - will showcase nearly 40 years of baseball evolution in a progressive format starting in the year 1858 and finishing in 1895.

The organizers have dubbed the event, “A Pitch for Doc Adams.” It is one of many similar events taking place throughout the year by vintage baseball teams across the U.S. to honor Doc Adams - a long-overlooked and forgotten baseball legend who played a pioneering role in the foundation of modern baseball and is eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2025 Classic Baseball Era ballot.

John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball and author of “Baseball in the Garden of Eden” (Simon and Schuster, 2012) and numerous other titles underscored Adams’ importance. He is baseball’s most important figure not in the Hall of Fame. More than anyone he developed nine players, nine innings and ninety-foot basepaths.

Born in Mont Vernon, NH in 1814, Doc graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1838 and while practicing medicine in New York City, he played baseball for exercise, eventually becoming a founding member of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club (K.B.B.C.) in 1845. Doc oversaw the manufacturing of bats and made many of the balls by hand (which were not readily available back then) and organized regular matches with other Clubs at the storied Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ where it has been said that the first modern match of baseball was held in 1846. In 1849, Doc invented and played the position of shortstop as the balls were often too light to make a throw from the outfield without a middle person to relay the ball. Eventually, the position moved forward to fill in the infield. In 1857, while presiding over the Rules Committee for the newly formed National Association of Base Ball Clubs, he is credited with having set the bases at 90-feet apart, advocated strongly for nine-inning games and nine players per side. He also was in favor of the “fly game,” where balls in fair territory must be caught in the air. Prior to this rule change in 1865, balls could be caught on one bound for an out.

The Society of American Baseball Research voted Doc as their 2014 “19th Century Overlooked Baseball Legend” and in 2015, he finally appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot falling just two just two votes short of election. Only a few months later, his handwritten “1857 Laws of Base Ball” were discovered and sold at auction for $3.26 million – still a record for any baseball related document. He has yet to appear on any ballot since then. With the 2021 passing of his great-granddaughter Marjorie Adams who had been a juggernaut of enthusiasm and support for raising awareness of her ancestor’s contributions to baseball (see New York Times - July 20, 2021), the Delaware County VBBA and the hundreds of nineteenth century teams across the U.S. are throwing the full weight of their support toward seeing that Doc will get back on the ballot and into the Hall of Fame.

The event at Doubleday Field will have an honorary captain on each club in a Knickerbocker uniform handing out free Doc Adams baseball cards between innings. The rules and customs of play will be reminiscent of what baseball looked like in its formative years of the nineteenth century and rules interpretation will be emceed by Tom “Big Bat” Fesolowich, founder of the National Association of Historic Base Ball Clubs and organizer of the perennial Doc Adams Old Time Base Ball Festival at Bethpage Village Restoration. The event is being sponsored by TravelBaseballRankings.com – a Michigan-based travel club who will host a 16U tournament there throughout the weekend.