We’ll get ’em next year

IN 1903 a sceptical English-born journalist suggested that baseball was a form of rounders, a British children’s game. (Isn’t it? many Britons would still ask.) An investigative commission was set up, which found that in 1839 Abner Doubleday invented the game in Cooperstown, a village in upstate New York 200 miles (322km) from Manhattan. A well-battered ball found in a farmhouse attic in 1934 cemented the legend, though historians were doubtful. Soon afterwards the National Baseball Hall of Fame and a museum opened in Cooperstown.

The place evokes nostalgia for a time that never really existed. Main Street, with its single traffic light, has a “Hardball Café” and quaint shops called “Seventh Inning Stretch” and “Line Drives and Lipstick”. Several sell baseball memorabilia, such as vintage cigarette cards and valuable autographs. Children in Little Leagues play on Doubleday Field, a small ballpark which has also hosted games played by professional greats. Almost everyone strolling along Main Street wears baseball T-shirts, some commemorating long-gone Negro League teams.