Doubleday Field

Doubleday Field. Welcome to Cooperstown. , The Baseball Connection, "I am at [a] loss how to get verification of my statements regarding the invention of base ball." - Abner Graves, originator of the Doubleday myth, 1905, Abner Graves reported to the Mills Commission, created in 1905 to determine baseball's origins, that Abner Doubleday invented the game in Cooperstown, likely in 1839. Despite the fact that Doubleday was at West Point at the time, Grave's story stuck. , Beginning in 1919 the local Chamber of Commerce leased and then purchased a pasture to create a baseball diamond named for Doubleday. Village of Cooperstown residents voted to acquire the field in 1923, and improvements commenced. As the centennial of baseball's mythical invention approached, the current grandstand was added in time for the Cavalcade of Baseball on June 12, 1939. , That same day, just down the street, the Hall of Fame's first inductees arrived at the new Baseball Museum. Although the Mills Commission was mistaken when it declared Cooperstown the birthplace of baseball, Cooperstown remains the hometown of our national pastime., (photo captions:), ·The Cavalcade of Baseball marked the centennial of baseball's reported creation and brought 10,000 people to Doubleday Field to see baseball's greats play on teams led by Honus Wagner and Eddie Collins., ·Major General Abner Doubleday engraved by J.C. Buttre from a photograph by Mathew Brady, ·In 1939, during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration provided labor and the Village of Cooperstown supplied materials and equipment for the construction of the current grandstand at Doubleday Field. , ·Baseball game played on Phinney's pasture, which would become Doubleday Field