Laying waste to the notion that Abner Doubleday established the modern game of baseball, acclaimed biographer Jay Martin makes a bold case for A. J. Cartwright (1820-1892), an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and avid ballplayer whose keen perception and restless spirit codified the rules of the sport and engineered its rapid spread throughout the country.Consulting Cartwright's personal correspondence and papers, Martin shows how this American archetype synthesized a number of elements from popular ballgames into the program, bylaws, and positions we find on the field today. After formalizing his blueprint, Cartwright worked tirelessly to promote baseball nationwide, appealing to both upper- and lower-class spectators and ballplayers and weaving a trail of influence across nineteenth-century America. Addressing the controversy that has roiled for years around the claims for Doubleday and Cartwright, Martin revisits the original arguments behind each camp and throws into sharp relief the competing ambitions of these figures during a time of aggressive westward expansion and unparalleled opportunities for individual reinvention. Martin's story of modern baseball not only offers a fascinating window into a thoroughly American phenomenon but also accesses a rare history of American ideals.

The Birth of the FatherThe Dream
Cartwright, Dreaming Again
Across the Plains
Visions and Revisions
Paradise Bound
Paradise Found
The Last Gasp of the Great Sailing Ships
Missionary Baseball
Starting All Over Again: It's Gonna Be Rough-but We're Gonna Make It
The New Fire Chief
Freemasonry Comes to Hawaii
A Gift from the Sea-and a Loss
Back to Baseball
DeWitt and His Brothers
Cartwright & Co., Ltd.
Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr., American
The Social Whirl
Advisor to the Queen
Deaths and New Life
King Sugar
Baseball on the Plantations
Spalding's World Tour-First Stop, Hawaii
The Final Dissolving
Cartwright's Second Life: Myth Into History
Appendix 1: Chronology of the Life of Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr.
Appendix 2: Did Cartwright "Really Invent" Baseball? Or, How Did the Game Evolve Before He Arrived? A Short Survey of Two Vexed Questions
Notes and References
Acknowledgments
Index