Alexander Cartwright

Alexander Cartwright.

Alexander Cartwright II (April 17, 1820–July 12, 1892) was officially credited by the United States Congress on June 3, 1953, with inventing the modern game of baseball.

Cartwright likely played a key role in formalizing the first published rules of the game, including the concept of foul territory, the distance between bases, three-out innings, and the elimination of retiring baserunners by throwing batted baseballs at them.

Alexander Cartwright was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938 in a “pioneers" category for the Veterans' Committee ballot.

While many attributed the invention of baseball to Abner Doubleday, the story is now considered a myth by sports historians.

Early years

Alexander Joy Cartwright was born on April 17, 1820 in the city of New York. He was the son of Alexander Joy Cartwright Sr., a merchant sea captain, and his wife Esther Burlock Cartwright. He was one of seven children.

Cartwright began work in 1836 as a clerk at the age of sixteen in Coit & Cochrane, a broker's office on Wall Street. He later earned his living as a clerk for Union Bank of New York. Alex married Eliza Van Wie of Albany on June 2, 1842. Three children were born to them: DeWitt (May 3, 1843, in New York), Mary (June 1, 1845, in New York), and Catherine (or Kathleen) Lee—who was known as "Kate Lee" (October 5, 1849).

Baseball

Bank hours permitted employees the opportunity to spend time outdoors before heading home by nightfall. Accordingly, it was common during the early part of the nineteenth century in New York to see men gathering in the street or vacant lots for a game of ball after their work was done for the day playing what was called town ball. One such vacant lot was on 27th Street and 4th Avenue (Madison Square at the time) and later at 34th Street and Lexington Avenue (Murray Hill).

Many of these ball-playing young men, including Cartwright, were also volunteer firemen. The first firehouse that Cartwright was associated with was Oceana Hose Company No. 36. Later, he joined Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12, located at Pearl and Cherry Streets.

In 1845, the vacant lot in Manhattan became unavailable for use. The group was forced to look for another location to play ball. They found a playing field, Elysian Field, across the [Hudson River]] in Hoboken, New Jersey that charged $75 a year to rent.

In order to pay the rental fees, Cartwright helped organize a ball club so that he could collect fees for the rental of Elysian Field. The club was named the 'Knickerbockers,' probably in honor of the fire station where Cartwright and some teammates worked. The Knickerbockers club was organized on September 23, 1845.

The team drew up a constitution and bylaws on September 23, 1845, and twenty rules in all were adopted. The Knickerbocker rules are also synonymously known as the “Cartwright Rules.” Cartwright and his friends played their first recorded game on October 6, 1845.

The formation of the Knickerbockers club across the Hudson River created a division in the group of Manhattan players. Several of the players refused to cross the river on a ferry to play ball because they did not like the distance away from home. Those players staying behind formed their own club, the 'New York Nine.'

The first baseball game between two different teams was played on June 19, 1846 at Elysian Field in Hoboken, New Jersey. The two teams, the 'Knickerbockers' and the 'New York Nine,' played with Cartwright's 20 rules. Cartwright’s team, the Knickerbockers, lost 23 to 1 to the New York Nine club in four innings. Some say that Cartwright's team lost because his best players did not want to make the trip across the river. Cartwright was the umpire during this game and fined one player 6 cents for cursing. Over the next few years, the rules of baseball spread throughout the country. Baseball was becoming the preferred sport of American adults and was drawing spectators by the thousands. Cartwright's rules would soon become part of The National Association Baseball Players Rules in 1860. The National Association Baseball Players Rules slowly evolved into today's rules of baseball.

Later years

In 1849, at the apex of the California Gold Rush, Alexander Cartwright headed west in search of fortune. Upon reaching California, he became sickened with dysentery and decided that California was not for him.

Their daughter "Kate Lee" died in Honolulu on November 16, 1851 and the other two Cartwright children also died young. Mary Cartwright Maitland died in 1869 at age 24, nearly three years after she married, and had no children. DeWitt died in 1870 at age 26. Two more children were born to Alexander and Eliza in Honolulu, Bruce in 1853 and Alexander III in 1855.

Legacy

New York City librarian Robert W. Henderson documented Cartwright's contributions to baseball in his 1947 book Bat, Ball, and Bishop, which Congress cited in recognizing Cartwright as the inventor of the modern game. Although there is no question that Cartwright was a prominent figure in the early development of baseball, some students of baseball history have suggested that Henderson and others embellished Cartwright's role. The primary complaint is that touting Cartwright as the "true" inventor of the modern game was an effort to find an alternative single individual to counter the clearly mythical "invention" of baseball by Abner Doubleday.

See also

• History of baseball
• New York Knickerbockers

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Acocella, Nick. 1996. Hoboken, Alexander Cartwright, & The Beginnings of Baseball: with a Note on the Doubleday Myth. Hoboken, N.J.: Hoboken Historical Museum. OCLC 48182067
• Cartwright, Alexander Joy. 1849. The Alexander Cartwright Diary. OCLC 180851604
• Henderson, Robert W. 2001. Ball, Bat, and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252069927
• Martin, Jay. 2009. Live All You Can: Alexander Joy Cartwright and the Invention of Modern Baseball. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231147941
• Nucciarone, Monica. 2009. Alexander Cartwright: The Life Behind the Baseball Legend. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803233539
• Peterson, Harold. 1973. The Man Who Invented Baseball. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0684131854

External links

• Template:Bbhof
• BaseballLibrary - biography
• Open-Site - biography
• Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr.

Template:1938 Baseball HOF

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