Gen. Doubleday didn't invent baseball

It is the birthday Union General Abner Doubleday (1819), who is credited with firing the first shot in the Civil War at Fort Sumter, and also registering a patent for the cable car railway that still operates in San Francisco. He may be more widely remembered, however, for something historians say he didn’t do: invent baseball. The story of Doubleday’s invention of baseball persisted for generations, perpetuated by a 1905 baseball commission’s report that came to that conclusion. Recent scholarship, though, calls that story a myth and presents evidence that the principal source for it was highly unreliable. Nevertheless, the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Doubleday’s boyhood home of Cooperstown, New York, and a baseball stadium and a minor league team are named for him. Doubleday did publish two important Civil War volumes: Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (1876), and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882).

Cool Papa Bell: Fast man in baseball

It is the birthday of baseball legend James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell (1903), one of the fastest players in the game. He played in the Negro Leagues, where he began in 1922 as a pitcher for the St. Louis Stars but eventually moved to center field, where he could play close in and still was fast enough to catch hits behind him. As a baserunner he was legendary. Satchel Paige told a story about him that may have been a tall tale: “One time, he hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit his rear end as he slid into second.” He was a power hitter with a .400 record for several seasons. The Sporting News ranked him one of the 100 greatest players in baseball. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.