Henry Chadwick (Sports Journalist)

Henry Chadwick (ca.1890)

Henry Chadwick (born October 5, 1824 in Exeter , England , † April 20, 1908 in Brooklyn , New York City ) was a sports journalist and historian . He founded the baseball statistics and is considered the "father of baseball".

Life

Henry Chadwick was born in England (later Sir Edwin Chadwick was his half-brother) and the family moved to the United States when Henry was twelve years old. He came into contact with the ball sports of cricket , rounders and the closely related townball, both as a player and as a reporter for local newspapers. In 1856 he saw a baseball game for the first time and henceforth focused on the sport, but also published on cricket, football and later on numerous other sports.

In 1908 he was in a car accident and contracted pneumonia, the sequelae of which he died (when he fainted again shortly before his death in 1909, he first asked about the last baseball game between Brooklyn and New York).

Significance for the sport of baseball

Chadwick introduced numerous innovations in and around baseball. In particular, he is considered the founder of baseball statistics . He published game results in so-called baseball guides early on and developed the box score and some key indicators (e.g. batting average ), which are also used in modern baseball statistics ( Sabermetrics ).

Chadwick was also a member of the rules committee and was responsible for important baseball publications, including Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player (Erastus and Irwin Beadle extended their concept of the dime novel to sport) and later the Official Base Ball Guide of his friend Albert G. Spalding . With Spalding he also had a dispute over the question of whether baseball had English roots (namely Rounders, in Chadwick's opinion), or whether it was an originally American sport (in Spalding's view).

As early as 1870, Chadwick was known as the "father of baseball," President Theodore Roosevelt personally congratulated him on his eightieth birthday in 1904, and in 1938 he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as the only journalist .

Works (selection)

• "Beadle's dime base-ball player." New York: Beadle and company, from 1860
• "Beadle's dime book of cricket." New York: IP Beadle & Co., ca.1860
• "The Base ball players' book of reference ...", New York: JC Haney & co., From 1866
• "Beadle's dime book of cricket and football." New York: Beadle and company, 1866
• "Beadle's dime guide to skating and curling." New York: Beadle & company, 1867
• "Beadle's dime hand-book of yachting and rowing." New York: Beadle and company, ca.1867
• "The Game of Base ball. How to Learn It, How to Play it, and How to Teach It. With Sketches of Noted Players." New York: G. Munro, 1868
• "Chadwick's base ball manual for 1871: containing the revised rules of the game for the season of 1871, also the new constitution and by-laws of the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players, together with a history of the rise and progress of the old National Association, and a full detailed report of the proceedings of the two conventions of 1871: together with special articles on the newest points in pitching, batting, and fielding, also, records of principal clubs for 1869 and 1870. " New York: American News Co., 1871.
• "De Witt's cricket guide, containing very full, plain and accurate information as to the best manner of bowling, batting and fielding, and giving all the rules regulating the game of cricket." New York: CT De Witt, 1879
• "Peck & Snyder's amateur score book, for the coming season." New York: Peck & Snyder, ca.1883
• "The art of base ball batting." Illustrated by Geo. H. Benedict. New York, Chicago: AG Spalding & bros., Ca.1885
• "The art of fielding; with a chapter on base running." New York, Chicago: AG Spalding & bros., 1885 ( digitized )
• "Baseball", Philadelphia: JB Lippincott company, 1888
• "The game of chess." New York: American sports publishing co., 1895

literature

• Andrew Schiff, "The Father of Baseball": A Biography of Henry Chadwick. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008

Web links

• Short biography at the Society for American Baseball Research (English)
• Entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The dates of life are taken from the biography of Andrew Schiff.