December 13, 2007: Dark Day for Baseball

Really, to tell the press that "I haven't read the report" is just beyond damn stupid.

If baseball has done anything well since it's inception it's shoot itself in the foot by making bad problems as glaring as possible then "fix" these problems with pomp and circumstancial sweeping of things under the rug.

I've said it a million times before - if you used baseball's busines model for a real business you'd go bankrupt several times.

I'm not kidding. It would be killing three birds with one bonehead.

1) Selig would be replaced by someone actually more competent

2) with the same owner mentality.

3) He would somehow lend credibility to baseball - a U.S. president is still a U.S. President. Ask Warren G Harding!

Doubleday was attending West Point Military Academy when he supposedly invented base ball in Cooperstown, New York. And he became a famous war hero so like baseball always has done - swept the truth under the rug and went with what sounded best. In fact, one of the people on the commission knew Doubleday personally AND knew Cartwright was the first organizer yet went with the better sounding story because it was for the benefit of the game being attached to a fine, true blooded American man like Doubleday and not a greedy son of a bitch, immigrant apologist like Cartwright.

Baseball evolved from rounders, everyone knows it.

Alexander J Cartwright created the first "base ball club" in 1845 - the first time the game was called "base ball". He also wrote the first rule book but he did not create the rules it was several teams that agreed to them.

The first known written reference to base-ball is actually a 1791 bylaw from Pittsfield, MA stipulating that the game not be played 80 yards or closer to the new public meeting house. Cartwright's 1846 game in Hoboken was the first truly codified game of base-ball.

The Doubleday story is a flat out lie, generated by A.G. Spalding (yes, THAT Spalding) and his cronies in an effort to prove that baseball was a purely American game. It's been perpetuated, despite its obvious lack of truth, because it is easier to say and understand that "Abner Doubleday invented baseball" instead of the reality which is "Baseball developed from rounders and cricket, evolving, changing, eventually being codified in 1846 but nevertheless still changing dramatically over time."

I only know things because I need to find answers to my questions. But credit goes to you because you're a "know it all"...

"Semantic Banter Rawb."

Screw my analogy policing, you think you're smart but you sure are dumb for arguing with me... why don't you ever get tired of that?

By the way - I nearly laugh my ass off every time you respond to anything I say to you. At least you think you think you can win... but win WHAT?

I've always considered AGM to be a forum for the free exchange of sports opinions and ideas. I was unaware that it is apparently a competition, which you have clearly "won." Forgive me if I do not indulge in such "competition." I know "winning" arguments on AGM is a monumental achievement, but there are other things I'd prefer to do with my time. Besides, it's so clear that you're the best at everything, Manny, so how dare anyone ever disagree with you, or have the unmitigated gaul to critique your comments.

I guess Abe Lincoln's last words were "The game must go on..." right? Because Doubleday was also at Ford theatre when he was shot.

and to end the argument

I think they'll go 38-0 and Rawb only wants them to go 19-0.

Plus how the Pats do has zero effect on my life whereas the Pats are the only thing rawb has in his life.

I'm going to take a Belichickian stance on the 19-0 issue. I want the Patriots to go 14-0 by beating the Jets on Sunday, then we'll think about next week's game.

Manny, you don't know me, you'll never meet me, and you'll have nothing to do with the important things in my life. There's so much more to my life than sports, just like I'm sure there's more to your life than sports. Besides, you're forgetting about the Red Sox.

If facking with morons is what you like to do, then be my guest. Frankly, I prefer dealing with intelligent people. Life's too short to waste on things that trick yourself into a sense of superiority.

And regarding my diction, and the occasional $1,000 words I use, I don't do it to make myself appear smart. I know how smart how I am, and how much smarter I could be. And I honestly don't care if you or anybody else has an accurate gauge of my intelligence. I try to convey ideas using the best words I can think of. It might come off as pretentious, but I really don't care. My apathy toward you knows no bounds.

Finally, I recommend that you don't ever attempt to understand why I do what I do. I've spent 23 years with myself and I'm just getting to know me. You read my articles and comments on a sports web-site. Nobody can understand anyone with such a small amount of filtered exposure.

I'll write the first two verses for you...

"Why is ARod such a hater"

Somehow Jeter got a golden glove, but A-Rod can't get Yankee fans' love

Jeter is "Driven", KD are you kidding?

If Jeter is Most Awesomest Yankee, A-Rod is still MVP

If A-Rod would have left you would replace him with who?

They need to move Jeter away from short because he plays it like a pile of #2

We could do this all night but it's already over

Mr November stunk up the entire month of October

Mr April got you there it ain't that scary

I'll admit being wrong when I see the picture - I did a google search on the web and found 694 (weird enough) pictures of him of which TWO were actual photographs of Doubleday - yes, I scanned through themm all - both were of him seated in uniform and not on a baseball field.

While it is true that baseball was spread throughout the country by the Civil War, I have a source (an old fashioned book about baseball's myths) that said there was no actual evidence that Doubleday ever played baseball, ever liked baseball or that he ever saw a single game played.

Doubleday wrote volumes of papers and memoirs in his life and never once mentioned baseball. Of course he went crazy in his latter years and shot and killed his wife before spending his final days in an asylum. Maybe he forgot he enjoyed basbeall?

Doubleday was an 1842 graduate of West Point (graduating with A.P. Stewart, D.H. Hill, Earl Van Dorn and James Longstreet) and served in both the Mexican and Seminole wars. In 1861, he was stationed at the garrison in Charleston Harbor. It is said that it was Doubleday, an artillery officer, who aimed the first Fort Sumter guns in response to the Confederate bombardment that initiated the war. Later he served in the Shenandoah region as a brigadier of volunteers and was assigned to a brigade of Irwin McDowell's corps during the campaign of Second Manassas. He also commanded a division of the I Corps at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg as well at Gettysburg where he assumed the command of I Corps after the fall of Gen. John F. Reynolds, helping to repel the infamous "Pickett's Charge." Strangely, his outstanding military service has been all but forgotten yet his controversial baseball legacy still lives on. Regardless of really being (or not being) the actual "inventor" of the modern version, Doubleday did apparently organized several exhibitions between Union divisions and was an apparent student and fan of the game. Many of these contests were attended by thousands of spectators and often made front-page news equal to the war reports from the field.

Yes, I can also find more books that credit Doubleday with the invention of baseball. That paragraph would be handy if one was writing abook glorifying baseball during the Civil War. Doubleday HIMSELF wrote two books abouit the Civil War yet neither of those books mention a word about these VERY popular games????

Baseball goes back much further. And here is the pic for proof:

The great Army General Abner Doubleday had a nephew that may or may not have watched and/or played baseball in or somewhere near Cooperstown, New York... What was that nephew's name?

Ever see any of them?

Argument over.

Anyway, I don't believe those things happened as literally as they are described. As a student of Joseph Campbell's teachings, I understand the power of myth and how things can happen one very boring, normal way and yet be described in a much more tremendous fashion yet both accounts can be equally accurate.

Maybe I'll channel Mr Doubleday soon and have an interview with him!!?!? I do love the dead guys!

I've been to Gettysburg too. More than once.

And I didn't say the game was played AT Gettysburg, I'm discrediting your nephew theory.

ooooohhhhhhh...