This version of the story of the birth of baseball centers on a few individuals. There is a great deal of detail about their lives; the evidence builds up to a strong argument, but in the end we can't ever know for sure how basebell as a national sport was born. ( )

A very dense, very detailed look into the creation of baseball. The book was too much for me and the sheer volume of details took away from the thread of a narrative structure, robbing the book of any joy in discovering how baseball came to be. ( )

Baseball is America’s pastime. For as long as I can remember I’ve heard the name Abner Doubleday associated with it, but I never heard the story. That made reading this book fun—I had no preconceived idea about the origin of baseball.

Call me naïve, but I wasn’t prepared for the political nature of the story. At least, as the argument in the book went, the traditional story of baseball’s creation was rooted in American nationalism and the truth seemed to take a back seat at times. Now, though, historical scholarship seems to have found an alternative to the “legend.” The author looks at the lives of Adam Ford, Abner Graves, and Albert Goodwell Spalding to present a clearer picture of how baseball came about.

The book it was largely an interesting read. At times it was slow and seemed (unnecessarily?) padded with historical background not needed for the story being told. More frustrating is that the author comes to no real resolution on the story. He presents a lot of information and speculation but cannot offer any real answers.

*Note: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. ( )

Baseball's Creation Myth: Adam Ford, Abner Graves and the Cooperstown Story by Brian Martin. Jefferson, NC : McFarland & Company, Publishers, c2013. (Received from and reviewed for the Early Reviewers program.)

Baseball's Creation Myth is another in a long line of books about the origins of baseball. Most baseball fans probably have heard the story of Abner Doubleday "inventing" baseball in Cooperstown, NY. Many fans may even know that this story is a myth, but most fans don't know how we ended up with that story as the origin of "America's National Game." This book, Baseball's Creation Myth, tells that story . . . and much more.

Martin weaves together two life stories and proposes that their possible intersection may have produced the story. Abner Graves was a mining engineer born near Cooperstown, NY. While traveling late in life, he saw an article by A. G. Spalding (yes, the guy who made baseballs and other sporting equipment) requesting stories of the origins of the game of "base ball." In response, Graves wrote a letter describing the invention of "base ball" by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown during 1838 or 1839 and sent it to an Akron, Ohio newspaper. Adam Ford was a Canadian physician and sports enthusiast of baseball, curling, and cricket who eventually moved to Denver, Colorado where he was fond of telling (and writing) stories about his favorite sports. These stories included his memories of playing baseball in Beachville, Ontario, CANADA in 1838.

As it turns out, there were many holes in Abner Graves story about Doubleday and Cooperstown, but Spalding was so intent on proving that baseball was invented in the USA that those holes were overlooked. The details of how this creation myth became accepted as fact form a large portion of this book. In addition, Martin explores how Graves may have come up with the story and the possibility that Graves was revising and elaborating on stories he may have heard from Adam Ford when they were both living in Denver, but setting those stories in Cooperstown, NY rather than in Canada.

The book contains an impressive level of detail on Abner Graves' life, Adam Ford's life, and how/when they may have intersected in Denver. Unfortunately, these details could have used a stronger editorial hand; the text contains too much repetition, both between and within chapters. I also wish the stories were presented in a more engaging style rather than the "here are all the facts in all their minutiae" style used. I love baseball and stories about baseball and yet I had trouble staying awake while reading this book.

Some of the anecdotes are indeed rather amusing and/or eye-opening: discussion of early baseball war metaphors, information about the early (and deadly) days of football explaining why baseball had precedence as "the National Game", the verbal battles between Spalding and Henry Chadwick over American or British origin of the game, and samples of Mark Twain's early journalistic exaggerations. And by the time I got to the end of the book I had a better idea of how all the details came together. Still, I could have used more help along the way in seeing where the author was trying to go with all this information.

For those baseball fans who have read other histories of their favorite game (most of which totally leave out any mention of Adam Ford and Canadian baseball history), there will be valuable information here. I just wish reading it was as joyful an experience as a day at the ballpark. ( )

I'm a huge baseball fan and a huge fan of Cooperstown, NY, but after reading this book I had to ask myself, "Why do I care where baseball was invented?"

If you enjoy scholarly books that tell a good story, then read "WIlliam Cooper's Town" for a real history of Cooperstown, NY. And baseball history is best told in the stories of its players. ( )