Mr. N. E. Young of Washington, D. C, a veteran ball player, and the first Secretary and afterward the fourth President of the National League.
Mr. Alfred J. Reach of Philadelphia, and
Mr. George Wright of Boston, both well-known business men and two of the most famous ball players in their day.
Mr. James E. Sullivan of New York, President of the Amateur Athletic Union, accepted the position of Secretary of this Special Commission.
The report of the Commission, written by Mr. A. G. Mills, and bearing date December 30th, 1907, is signed by all the members named above, except Hon. A. P. Gorman, whose death occurred while his colleagues were engaged in the work of research. The report closes with these words:
"As I have stated, my belief had been that our 'National Game of Base Ball' originated with the Knickerbocker club, organized in New York in 1845, and which club published certain elementary rules in that year; but, in the interesting and pertinent testimony for which we are indebted to Mr. A. G. Spalding, appears a circumstantial statement by a reputable gentleman, according to which the first known diagram of the diamond, indicating positions for the players, was drawn by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N. Y., in 1839. Abner Doubleday subsequently graduated from West Point and entered the regular army, where, as Captain of Artillery, he sighted the first gun fired on the Union side (at Fort Sumter) in the Civil War. Later still, as Major General, he was in command of the Union army at the close of the first day's fight in the "battle of Gettysburg, and he died full of honors at Mendham, N. J., in 1893. It happened that he and I were members of the same veteran military organization—the crack Grand Army Post (Lafayette), and the duty devolved upon me, as Commander of that organization, to have charge of his obsequies, and to command the veteran military escort which served as guard of honor when his body lay in state, January 30, 1893, in the New York City Hall, prior to his interment in Arlington.
"In the days when Abner Doubleday attended school in Cooperstown, it was a common thing for two dozen or more of school boys