One of the enduring legends of baseball is that General Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball. Doubleday was a career army officer who was second in command at Fort Sumter when it was fired upon by Confederate artillery, sparking the American Civil War. His heroics leading troops in battle at Gettysburg and Antietam made him one of the Union’s best known generals. So who wouldn’t want a real war hero to also be the man who invented America’s game?

Doubleday’s baseball origin story comes from the Mills Commission, a committee chartered in 1905 by the National League that was tasked with finding the origins of the game. The Commission released their findings two years later, stating in part, "the first scheme for playing baseball, according to the best evidence obtainable to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839." In the years since, everything from books to U.S. Postage stamps have honored Doubleday as the inventor of our National Pastime – even the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s location in Cooperstown was due to it being Doubleday’s hometown. However, over the years the origin story has been thoroughly debunked. In fact, our $3.2 million sale of the 1859 "Laws of Base Ball" in SCP's 2016 Spring Auction led MLB's official baseball historian John Thorm to rightfully credit Lucius "Doc" Adams for creating baseball's official rules. Yet, in the minds of many, the myth still persists. Lke it or not, Abner Doubleday’s name will be forever linked to the game of baseball.

His popularity with both Civil War and baseball collectors makes his signature a much sought-after piece. This 1-1/4" by 4-1/8" sized cut is signed, “A. Doubleday Major Genl Vol” in 6/10 black ink dating it to the March 1863 to August 1865 period when his rank corresponded to a Major General of Volunteers. The page shows some staining and toning throughout from the 160+ years since it was signed. The reverse has no writing and has the residue from how it was previously displayed. The signature has been encapsulated and graded Authentic by Beckett.