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Alexander Cartwright Portrait from the Cartwright Family (ex-Barry Halper Collection)
Alexander Cartwright was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938 as a baseball pioneer. Presented is an oval portrait of Cartwright. He is often referred to as "The Father of Baseball." Recent evidence exists that casts doubt on such a lofty appellation, yet still recognizes Cartwright as a key member of early American baseball, a sport that actually had no one person as a founder, but that developed gradually, with input from many individuals and groups, as opposed to basketball, clearly invented by one man, James Naismith. For years, Abner Doubleday was credited as the inventor of baseball, yet as the inaugural class was about to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938, substantial evidence existed that Doubleday was never in Cooperstown when baseball was supposedly invented, and that he never had anything to do with inventing baseball, and early baseball was not developed in Cooperstown. Therefore, quick revisionist thinking credited Cartwright as baseball's Father, but not the game's inventor. Cartwright grew up in New York City and worked as a clerk and later as a bookseller. He was also a volunteer fireman with the Knickerbocker Engine Company of New York City. Cartwright belonged to the Gotham Base Ball Club and then was a key part of a splinter group that formed the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, possibly named by Cartwright after the fire company. With Cartwright a member, the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club played the first recorded baseball game, at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, on Oct. 6, 1845. Also, Cartwright and teammates from the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club played the first official match game of baseball on June 19, 1846, also at Elysian Fields. The offered oval portrait of Cartwright measures 9.75x13". There are some very slight scratches on the glass in the front of the frame, but the portrait itself is in excellent condition. The item was formerly in the collection of Barry Halper, and it originates from the Cartwright family.
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