There are few things more American than Baseball and Whiskey. In January 29, 1936, the U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson.

The Spalding Commission, a board formed in 1905 created by sporting goods magnate and former player A.G. Spalding to establish the genesis of baseball and prove whether the sport originated in the United States or was a variation of rounders, a game played in Britain. The commission formally announced their conclusion that the story from the April 4, 1905 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper where a Union mining engineer Abner Graves claimed that he had seen Abner Doubleday, a decorated Union Army officer who directed the first shot at Fort Sumter at the start of the Civil War and later served at the Battle of Gettysburg create a diagram of a baseball field, and had invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown.

Three decades later, Cooperstown philanthropist Stephen C. Clark – seeking a way to celebrate and protect the National Pastime as well as an economic engine for Cooperstown – asked National League president Ford C. Frick if he would support the establishment of a Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown based on the Spalding Commission’s conclusion.

the Baseball Writers’ Association of America chose the five greatest superstars of the game as the first class to be inducted: This first class of Greats included Ty Cobb, the most productive hitter in history; Babe Ruth known both for being an ace pitcher and the greatest home-run hitter to play the game; Honus Wagner a versatile star shortstop and batting champion; Christy Matthewson, the National League pitcher  who had more wins than any other NL pitcher in history; and pitcher Walter Johnson who is still considered as one of the most powerful pitchers to ever have taken the mound.

Three years later, in 1939, the Hall of Fame building officially opened in Cooperstown as all of baseball paused to honor what was called “Baseball’s Centennial” and as the first four Hall of Fame classes were inducted. Time Magazine wrote about the event stating: “The world will little note nor long remember what (Doubleday) did at Gettysburg, but it can never forget what he did at Cooperstown.”

In the years since the founding of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Doubleday Myth has been refuted. Doubleday himself was a first year plebe at West Point in 1839. Yet The Myth has become strong enough that the facts alone do not deter the spirit of Cooperstown or the recognition that the first class of Baseball Heroes deserves for what they brought to the game.

In Celebration of Cooperstown and those giants of the game that are memorialized in its halls today’s drink of the day is the Cooperstown Cocktail

The Cooperstown Cocktail:

1.75 oz Silk Jacket Gin
.75 oz of Vermouth
.75 oz of Dry Vermouth
a few dashes of orange bitters

Combine in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass.

Posted on January 30th, by David in Drink of the Day, Silk Jacket Cocktails.

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