by Geoff Cobb 
Today Al Reach is largely a forgotten figure here in North Brooklyn where he began his baseball career, But Reach not only became the first openly professional baseball player in 1864, but he also went on to co-found the Philadelphia Phillies and become a millionaire – not bad for an immigrant kid who began life working twelve hour days in a Greenpoint shipyard.
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Very Interesting. Also still a battle today is who invented baseball. Was it Spaulding or Abner Doubleday?
Hi Paul,
Actually Reach was part of a commission that created the fiction that
Abner Doubleday invented baseball. Maybe I will even write a piece about it.