MLB will research baseball's roots

NEW YORK, March 15 (UPI) -- Major League Baseball said Tuesday it will set about trying to determine the origins of the sport and how it evolved into its current form.

Abner Doubleday was once widely credited with inventing modern baseball in Cooperstown, N.Y., home to the sport's Hall of Fame. But there are researchers who say the game's origins appear to be in the 18th-century English games stoolball and "tut-ball," or even further back in 14th-century France where a game called "la soule" was played.

MLB.com reported MLB Commissioner Bud Selig announced the establishment of a Baseball Origins Committee to be headed by newly appointed official historian John Thorn.

Thorn and other experts who will hunt for information about the game's earliest days, and its growth in various communities.

"I am thrilled that John Thorn and our decorated panel will take on this ambitious endeavor," Selig said in a written statement. "In so many ways, our game is a reflection of American history, and I am glad that Major League Baseball can now contribute to the findings and celebrate our unparalleled tradition."

Thorn said baseball's past informs its present state.

"In no sport is the past as important to the present moment as it is in baseball," Thorn said in a written statement. "That's why so much interest attaches to how our great game began -- in America, in communities and in our family histories."

Also on the panel will be award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, former National League President Len Coleman, Elias Sports Bureau Executive Vice President Steve Hirdt, and baseball authors and historians David Block, James Edward Brunson III, Adrian Burgos Jr., Jane Leavy, Larry McCray and George F. Will.