. The story of Cooperstown . wing up various might prove useful in the determination ofthe question at issue. When all available evi-dence had been gathered the whole matter wascompiled and laid before the special commission,which spent several months in going over the massof data and argument. Briefs were addressed to the commission, byChadwick in support of his contention that BaseBall was developed from the English game ofRounders, and by his opponents, who claimeda purely American origin for the national game. The similarity of the two games, Chadwickcontended, was shown in the
. The story of Cooperstown . wing up various might prove useful in the determination ofthe question at issue. When all available evi-dence had been gathered the whole matter wascompiled and laid before the special commission,which spent several months in going over the massof data and argument. Briefs were addressed to the commission, byChadwick in support of his contention that BaseBall was developed from the English game ofRounders, and by his opponents, who claimeda purely American origin for the national game. The similarity of the two games, Chadwickcontended, was shown in the fact that Rounders THE BIRTHPLACE OF BASE BALL 249 was played by two opposing sides of contestants,on a special field of play, in which a ball waspitched or tossed to an opposing batsman, whoendeavored to strike the ball out into the field,far enough to admit of his safely running theround of the bases before the ball could be re-turned, so as to enable him to score a run, theside scoring the most runs winning the game. This. Base Ball on Native Soil basic principle of Rounders, Chadwick con-tended, is identical with the fundamental principleof Base Ball. Those who maintained the strictly Americanorigin of Base Ball were unwilling to admit a con-nection with any game of any other country, ex-cept in so far as all games of ball have a certainsimilarity and family relationship. It waspointed out that if the mere tossing or handlingof a ball, or striking it with some kind of stick,could be accepted as the origin of our game, itwould carry it far back of Anglo-Saxon civiliza- 250 THE STORY OF COOPERSTOWN tion—^beyond Rome, beyond Greece, at least tothe palmy days of the Chaldean Empire. It wasurged that in the early forties of the nineteenthcentury, when anti-British feeling still ran high,it is most unlikely that a sport of British origin■would have been adopted in America. It was re-called that Col. James Lee, who was one of themoving spirits in the original effort to popular
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