Why Baseball’s Origin Story is Completely Wrong

Yet it, and the ball at its heart, has a history and life so rich and original that it’s almost as if it’s alive.

An worn out baseball and glove ()

“You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball; and then in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” — Jim Bouton

I was four when my father first began tossing a baseball with me. My mitt was huge and heavy on my small arm, but I loved tossing that white orb back and forth with Dad that day and every one of the 50 years that followed. I could never get enough of it. This little bit of history is in memory of you, Dad.

The village of Cooperstown, population 1,853, is nestled in upstate New York, not far from the Finger Lakes and some of the most beautiful rolling countryside you will see anywhere. The town is a simple grid. Main Street runs down its middle with Pioneer and Chestnut streets bounding the little business district which still has the feel of a place out of another era; a saner, simpler time where you might imagine a band playing John Phillips Souza music from a nearby gazebo, where folks rock on their porch chairs, fans in hand, sipping a cold lemonade. Sherry’s Famous Restaurant on Main looks like it might have opened 100 years ago; the same with the Short Stop…