1862.113

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A Different View of Alexander Cartwright

Salience Noteworthy
City/State/Country: HI, United States
Game Base Ball
Immediacy of Report Contemporary
Notables Alexander Cartwright
Text

Although honored with a plaque at Cooperstown as a key figure in the evolution of base ball, Cartwright's reputation after settling in Hawaii proved a bit speckled: An 1862 source view of Cartwright: "Has probably a better capacity for pulling wool over shipmasters' eyes than any other man in the community. . . . Is very vindictive, and does not scruple at anything where there is money to be made. Is generally disliked, and by many considered a dangerous man to confide in. . . . Is fond of display, courts popularity, and has a weakness for females."

Sources

The Honolulu Merchants' Looking-Glass: To See Themselves As  as Others See Them. (18 pages, 1862.)

Comment

The treatise arrived by ship from San Francisco on New Year's Day, 1863, and soon caused a stir throughout the city. It begins with a brief preface revealing the author's intent allow his neighbors "to see themselves as others see them, so that 'in all their underhanded dealing, they may hesitate.' 

For more on Cartwright's life, see Protoball friend Monica Nucciarone, Alexander Cartwright: The Life Behind the Baseball Legend (University of Nebraska Press, 2009).  Monica's final chapter, "CONCLUSION: Alexander Cartwright, Father of Modern Baseball*", includes this generalization: "So, why isn't Cartwright's baseball legacy more clearly documented? . . . I feel Alexander Cartwright deserves to be honored as one of baseball's 'pioneers.' Yet to call him the sole  'Father of Modern Baseball' is more than a stretch." 

Monica reports on the 1862 treatise on page 70.  (Thanks to Tom Shieber for locating it.)

 

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Query

Is there further evidence on the suggestion that evidence for Cartwright's base ball leadership was lost in a fire after his death? 

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Source Image
Cartwright 1862.jpeg
Submitted by John Thorn
Submission Note Email of 6/3/2023



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