biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1819–93)
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| biography:
| US soldier, born in Ballston Spa, New York, USA. He trained at West Point, and fought in the Mexican War and against the Seminoles in Florida. He commanded the Federal troops that fired the first shot in defence of Fort Sumter as the Civil War commenced, and then distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg. He retired from the army in 1873, and wrote many newspaper and magazine articles as well as two accounts of his war experiences (drawing on his 67 volumes of diaries). In nothing he wrote does he ever mention baseball, nor does his New York Times obituary; but in 1908 a commission eager to establish the American origins of baseball credited him with being its inventor on the basis of a dubious letter from one Abner Graves, who claimed to have been present in Cooperstown, NY, on the day in 1839 Doubleday laid out the field and rules. Although the claim has long since been recognized as popular folklore - even by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown - Doubleday remains synonymous with baseball to most Americans. |
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