Baseball in the Garden of Eden - John Thorn

"Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Forget Alexander Joy Cartwright and the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth, each of whom has a stronger claim to baseball paternity than Doubleday or Cartwright. But did baseball even have a father—or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball’s preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie, not only the Doubleday legend, so long recognized with a wink and a nudge. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling (much like cricket, a far more popular game in early America), a proxy form of class warfare, infused with racism as was the larger society, invigorated if ultimately corrupted by gamblers, hustlers, and shady entrepreneurs."
Baseball in the Garden of Eden - The Secret History of the Early Game

Knickerbocker.  Alexander Cartwright is the middle figure.

My Nineteenth Century Pantheon
"Before I provide my list of personal pre-1900 household gods, let me run through a brief history of baseball fame to show why we might reasonably be dissatisfied with the nineteenth century’s representation in Cooperstown. I do not propose that the Baseball Hall of Fame remove any plaques or install any; I am wholly content to create an imaginary pantheon all my own, with the hopeful belief that others may be interested in my views. For some years I was consternated that Morgan Bulkeley was in and William Hulbert was not, but that has been remedied. In populating my personal pantheon of pre-1900 baseball worthies, I have evaluated not greatness as might be measured by modern statistics, but importance: Could the history of the game, I ask, be written without this figure’s contributions. For some individuals, the findings detailed in my new book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden, will tend to make my case; I am hoping you will read it, although none of what follows was directly addressed there."
Baseball in the Garden of Eden - My Nineteenth Century Pantheon

Albert Spalding, circa 1900. 

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The Prehistory of Baseball
"Among the many books that have educated us about the birth and infancy of baseball, John Thorn’s extraordinarily detailed and well-documented 'Baseball in the Garden of Eden' is the advanced seminar, the one that begins by telling you that everything you thought you knew is wrong. Its premise is that when it comes to baseball, what is generally thought to be history is myth, and the two most prominent myths — the one that Abner Doubleday invented the game in Coopers­town, N.Y., in 1839, and the other that the responsible party was a New Yorker, Alexander Cartwright, who formalized the game’s rules in 1845 — were promulgated by men with ulterior motives."
NY Times

npr: The 'Secret History' Of Baseball's Earliest Days
"In 1903, the British sportswriter Henry Chadwick published an article speculating that baseball derived from a British game called rounders, which Chadwick had played as a boy in England. But baseball executive Albert Spalding disagreed. Baseball, said Spalding, was fundamentally an American sport and began on American soil. To settle the matter, the two men appointed a commission, headed by Abraham Mills, the fourth president of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. The commission, which also included six other sports executives, labored for three years, after which it declared that Abner Doubleday invented the national pastime."
>npr (Video)

John Thorn and Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game
"March 2011 was an interesting month concerning author and historian John Thorn. The same can be said for enthusiasts of baseball’s origins and how the game evolved during the 19th Century. On March 1, Commissioner Bud Selig named Thorn the Official Baseball Historian of Major League Baseball, a post held by only one other person the 'Father of the Save,' the late Jerome Holtzman, who held the post from 1999 until his death on July 19, 2008. Next on March 15, the Commissioner announced that Thorn would lead the newly formed Baseball Origins Committee that would seek to determine the game’s beginnings and evolution."
Seamheads

amazon: Baseball in the Garden of Eden