Elysian Fields Forever

Elysian Fields, Hoboken N.J., 1859

Thoughts of warmer weather and one of the things that it will usher back in has this W/E Wednesday concentrating on America's Sport, Baseball.  I grew up in what I fondly call a Baseball Family as even my Mom loved the game from when she was a little girl listening to it back in the 1930's/40's on the radio with her Dad. I did some digging today and learned some interesting and some shocking new facts!  

The first organized game of real American Base Ball was played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 19, 1846.  In a way I wish I would have been there

Who's Baseball's Daddy?  Why, Henry is!

to witness those early games, free from all the monetary trappings that, to me, hinders the purest fun of the sport.  Don't get me wrong as I love to watch the Boys of Summer do their stuff on the field and, despite the commercialism that surrounds it, relish the beauty of the game.  Some may think I'm silly to say "beauty" when describing baseball, but if you get into it and witness a spectacular play and acknowledge the athleticism involved, it can be a thing of beauty...it's in the eye of the beholder, you know!  

An interesting fact I found out was that the Father of Baseball was Henry Chadwick, born in England, who grew to love baseball and had a huge hand in promoting it as "a national sport for Americans".  Among the many actions Chadwick accomplished for the game was to create the first box score, authored it's first rule book and devised the batting average and earned run average.  Oh that Henry!  

Oh no,he didnt!

Now this is the shocking fact I learned...Abner Doubleday, who is a Baseball Icon to many in the MLB, did NOT invent the game.  In fact, his obituary stated that he was a man "who did not care for outdoor sports".  This is a story of a group of people that wanted baseball to be a pure "American Game" and not influenced by other countries.  The Doubleday story was a claim by a 71 year old man, Abner Graves (who, interestingly, was later committed to an insane asylum) and it fit what The Mills Commission (a group that wanted to "research" how b-ball got it's start) wanted so they just ran with it!  In truth, our man Henry Chadwick, The Game's Big Daddy, was correct all along in stating that it evolved from forms of stick ball games in Europe, most notably "rounders" which then morphed into Town Ball in the U.S.  Oh, what a tangled diamond we weave!

Despite all the shenanigans of certain humans making a muck of  things, Baseball, when cleared of all the mess, is truly a great American Game.  And soon, oh very, very soon, it'll be time to hear those magic words, "Play ball!"