"A.G. Spalding" ~ There are few people in baseball history whose fingerprints (and gloves) have had as much of an impact as Albert Goodwill Spalding. From 1871-1875, Albert Spalding would pitch for the Boston Red Stockings (Braves) who would win four pennants in the five seasons the National Association (NA), baseball's first professional league, was in existence. Spalding would lead the league in wins all five years. He would then move to the Chicago White Stockings (Cubs) of the new National League, a league he would help create that today is the oldest baseball league in the world, and win the NL's first pennant as player/manager, again leading the league in wins. He pitched a 4-0 shutout against Louisville in what would be the Chicago franchise's very first win. His professional record now stood at 252-65 with an ERA of 2.14 and a batting average of .313. After only six full seasons, he was at the height of his career, the winningest pitcher in baseball and he decided to retire from pitching. In each of his six full seasons pitching he led the league in wins. He was just 27. If Albert Spalding did nothing else, he would be in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but first he would have to invent it. Born in 1850 in Byron, Illinois Spalding would lose his father at the age of eight forcing his family to move to Rockford, Illinois. Albert was the oldest of three and was the first to relocate to their new city, living with his aunt. It was here his love of baseball began. He became good enough to be asked to join the local amateur team, the"Forest Cities." He would pitch for them for five years and as a young teen he would earn wins against the Washington Nationals, considered the best team at the time and the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first professional team. It would be Harry Wright, the player/manager of the Red Stockings who would move his team to Boston and take the young Spalding with him, beginning his professional career. Spalding played in baseball's naissant period where throwing underhand was the style and the pitcher's mound was only 45 feet from home. Spalding would dominate. His career .794 win percentage is still the record for a pitcher. In his five years with Boston Spalding accounted for 91 percent of the dynasties wins. Considered one of the game's first stars he is also credited with making the wearing of a fielding glove the norm (barehand was most common). Ironically, it would be gloves that would inspire him and his brother Walter to start the A.G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company while playing in Chicago. They would create a catalog that merchants across the country could order from and be the first to standardize the shape of bats and the size and consistent quality of baseballs. Albert would utilize his name and connections to make his company's ball the only ball used until 1976. For almost 100 years Spalding provided all of MLB's baseballs. In 10 short years Spalding stores spread across the country making Albert a millionaire in his 30's. Spalding equipment became a supplier to every major sport, even selling fencing masks, boats and fishing equipment. Spalding grew rapidly and had a number of factories. The company even sold car wheels and produced rifles for the military during World War II from their Chicopee, Ma. factory. At one point Spalding sold two-thirds of all bicycles in the U.S. As good as he and his brother's sporting goods business was, Albert created a dynasty in Chicago as the White Stockings (Cubs) executive. Under his guidance the team would win pennants in 1880, '81, '82, '85 and '86. He would take over the franchise fully in 1882 when then owner William Hulbert, the man Spaulding would help create the National League with, died. Hulbert was the one who drew Spalding to the new NL. Hulbert and Spalding both shared a vision for organised baseball and both despised the drinking and gambling element that was rampant in the National Association. In fact, it was these feelings that led Spalding to sell off what he considered the rabble of his Chicago team. He sold King Kelly, the biggest star on the team, decades before Babe Ruth ever cursed the Red Sox. This would effectively end Chicago's first dynasty. Albert Spalding was a trailblazer on the mound for both pitching and the wearing of a glove. An innovator off the field, he would standardize the rules of the game, the bat and the ball used. He created professional umpiring crews and baseball season schedules. He even wrote the NL's charter. A brilliant businessman, and author of many books including "The Spalding Guide to Baseball," that was the primary Bible for fans of the game, complete with illustrations (including Spalding equipment) and all the stats from the previous season. In 1886 he and his manager Cap Anson, seeing the health benefits of Hot Springs Arkansas, brought the entire team to work out creating what we now call "Spring Training." Perhaps inspired by his Boston team's 1874 exhibition trip to England and Ireland, Spalding was the organizer of baseball's first trip around the world where exhibition games were played before the King of Italy, the Prince of Wales and beneath the Pyramids of Egypt in 1888-89. The trip took six months and everyone celebrated a triumphant return at a dinner at New York's Delmonico's restaurant. Some of the biggest dignitaries and celebrities of the day were there including Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt. Another President, President McKinley would appoint Spalding Commissioner to lead the US Olympic team to France in 1900. As the country grew into a world power, baseball grew alongside. And at the turn of the century, the century that would eventually be known as the "American Century," patriotism was fervent. This fervency would lead Spalding to dismiss any notion that baseball was not wholly an American game. It wasn't. It evolved from many English stick games, rounders being perhaps the best known. There were many variations and regional differences. In fact, Spalding himself would help create the first standard rules that put an end to these regional rules. Before the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry the New York and Massachusetts rules were two of the most common ways the early game was played and fought over. These were some of the arguments Henry Chadick used in his writings on the subject of baseball's "evolution.". Spalding would have none of it and to settle the debate with Chadwick he formed the Mills Commission in 1905. It was rigged from the get-go. Spalding appointed all the men of the committee and anyone with a belief other than baseball being an American game in origin was not considered. The commission sent out notifications in the days publications asking people with any knowledge of the game's origins to write in. After three years, the commission had little evidence to back its claim. They decided a letter from Colorado written by a 71-year-old engineer was close enough to proof. In the letter, the engineer recalled learning the game of "Town Ball" that a Civil War hero named Abner Doubleday had renamed "Base ball" and taught he and other kids in Cooperstown, NY. There were a number of inconsistencies in the story. Even Abraham Mills, the man whom the commission was named, had doubts. But, after three years of searching, the story was considered "reasonable enough" by the committee. Spalding loved the patriotic symbolism of a Civil War hero creating the nation's game in such a bucolic setting. This story would be believed by generations of baseball fans before historians would finally reveal that Chadwick was on the correct side of history and that baseball was not the invention of one man. A lie is always quicker than the truth. Despite the story of Abner Doubleday being a myth, it created Cooperstown as we know it and the Baseball Hall of Fame where you can see the plaque of Albert Spalding in the place he "invented." You can also run the bases of "Doubleday Field." In the final years of his life, Spalding would move to California with his second wife and would involve himself with society and civic minded businessmen. He built an estate near Point Loma and even ran for the senate. If you have ever driven California route 209, know that Spalding proposed the project to connect Point Loma and San Diego, even overseeing and partially paying for the roads construction. In 1911 he wrote "America's National Game" widely considered the first scholarly tome of baseball. Just before Albert Spalding's death in 1915 he helped organize the Panama-California Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and promote San Diego as a primary port of call. After he promoted baseball around the world he promoted trade around it as well. He would die of a stroke that year. He was 65. Abraham G. Mills, the head of the Mills Commission, participated in the famous Christmas Day baseball game of 1862 at Hilton Head, SC as a member of the Union Army. The photograph of the event is one of the earliest known pictures of a game in progress. 40,000 people are said to have attended. Abner Doubleday, the Civil War hero credited with inventing baseball, was an avid writer. He kept 67 diaries in his life, none of them mention baseball. Abner Graves, the engineer from Denver who wrote the letter to the Mills Commission citing Abner Doubleday as baseball's father, shot and killed his second wife. He would die in an insane asylum in 1926 at the age of 92.