He's a legend in baseball
Cartwright passed just six months before the Hawaiian royal family was deposed. Lorrin A. Cartwright passed just six months before the Hawaiian royal family was deposed. Lorrin A. Thurston, a played baseball with classmate Alexander Cartwright III at Punahou School, assisted in organizing the uprising that overthrew the monarchy. Numerous government representatives and well-known locals paid tribute to Alexander Cartwright after his death on July 12, 1892, and he was laid to rest in the Oahu Cemetery. Baseball greats like Babe Ruth, who paid a visit to his grave in 1934, used it as a touchstone. Many fans still put baseballs, hats, and gloves on Cartwright's grave in place of the customary floral offerings.
After his death, he appeared in many books to commemorate him as a legend of the baseball village. In 2009, he was the subject of two biographies. The most well-known ballpark in Honolulu, Makiki Field, was renamed Cartwright Field in 1938, and Hawaii annually awards the Cartwright Cup to the state's top high school baseball team. In his 1947 book Bat, Ball, and Bishop, New York City librarian Robert W. Henderson described Cartwright's contributions to baseball. The Man Who Invented Baseball, written by Harold Peterson in 1973, was about Cartwright. In 2009, two biographies about him were published. Live All You Can by Jay Martin: Alexander While Alexander Cartwright: The Life Behind the Baseball Legend by Monica Nucciarone acknowledges Cartwright as one of the game's pioneers but not its only originator, Joy Cartwright & the Invention of Modern Baseball confirms Cartwright's claim that he invented baseball.
