HOBOKEN, N.J. -- The mayor of a scrappy little town on the New Jersey waterfront wants to make one thing perfectly clear. The first baseball game ever was played in Hoboken, on July 19, 1846, not Cooperstown, N.Y.
'Once -- and for eternity -- we're going to let the world know that the Cooperstown-Abner doubleday designation is pure fantasy, and the baseball establishment knows it,' says Mayor Patrick Pasculli.
Pasculli and the city are planning a gala on Tuesday, which they say is the 144th anniversary of the day Alexander J. Cartwright created the game of strikes, balls and home runs.
New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio will sign a resolution designating Hoboken 'The Real Birthplace of Baseball,' old Hoboken baseballers will parade, and an Asbury Park country-western singer, Jim Reardon, will debut 'Baseball Was Born in This Town,' a musical tribute to Hoboken and baseball.
Alexander J. Cartwright IV will receive the key to the city before the Hoboken Recreation League will simulate the first game.
The bash is the latest in a long series of attempts by Hoboken to get from behind the shadow of Cooperstown, N.Y., where the Baseball Hall of Fame is located, and which is commonly known as the birthplace of baseball.
On display at the Hall of Fame is an exhibit which holds Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday sketching out the first diamond around 1839.
Critics of that theory point out that records show Doubleday was a plebe at West Point that year, and note that the first recorded baseball game was played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken.
Though the Hoboken baseball boosters haven't come up with any evidence to show that baseball was actually invented there, they aren't discouraged.
And on Tuesday, the only doubters will be far away.
