Baseball’s First Rules, July 1

Documents that the Official Historian of Major League Baseball declared “the Magna Carta of America’s national pastime” will be on exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland (1200 SW Park Avenue) beginning this Friday, July 1, through October 9, 2016. The exhibit will be the first public display of these nineteenth century papers, which only recently came to light at an auction in California. The hand-written documents were drafted by Daniel “Doc” Adams and presented at an unprecedented special meeting of all New York area baseball clubs in 1857. The documents, entitled “Laws of Base Ball,” conclusively set the game’s rules, among which included establishing ninety-foot base paths, assigning nine players to a side, and fixing the duration of the game at nine innings. A full transcription of the documents is available upon request; please email rachel.randles@ohs.org for a copy.