Baseball Was Not Invented by Abner Doubleday

The classic American story of baseball's creation paints a vivid picture: a young Abner Doubleday sketching a diamond in the dirt in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. In reality, this origin story was the product of the Mills Commission, a committee formed in 1905 led by sporting goods magnate Albert Spalding. The commission sought to establish a purely American origin for the game, disconnecting it from its obvious English ancestors. Doubleday, a