Ivers Whitney Adams

Ivers Whitney Adams (May 20, 1838 – October 10, 1914) was an American baseball executive and businessperson, and founder of the first professional baseball team in Boston, the Boston Red Stockings.

Adams was the Founder, Organizer and First President of the Boston Base Ball Association, the legal corporation that operated the baseball club initially known as the Boston Red Stockings. The club was Boston's first professional baseball team, continues to operate today as the Atlanta Braves, and is the longest continuously operating team in Major League Baseball. On January 20, 1871, the Boston Base Ball Association was legally organized by Adams with $15,000 raised from investors and the commitment of Harry Wright, manager of America's first professional baseball team, the , to manage the new Boston club.

The attention of the baseball world in 1870 was turned to the Red Stockings of Cincinnati. The Wrights, Harry and George, were known to be the leading spirits of that team. Mr. Adams' attention was called to them, and in conversation with a leading local cricketer at that time, he became convinced the Wrights were the men wanted, and failing to secure them, the effort would be abandoned. A correspondence was opened, resulting in Mr. Adams visiting Cincinnati and meeting the Wrights. Subsequently George came to Boston, and during the following few weeks, while here as Mr. Adams' guest and in constant communication with Harry in Cincinnati, the first Boston team was determined upon at a meeting held at the Parker House on January 10, 1870."

-From George V. Tuohey (1897). A History of the Boston Baseball Club – A concise and accurate history of Base Ball from its inception. Boston: M.F. Quinn & Co. p. 64. 

Adams was a native of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, but left the town at the age of 19 to seek his fortune in Boston. He became the president of the American Net and Twine Company, which was the largest manufacturer of its kind in the world at that time. Throughout his life Adams kept an interest in the activities of his home community. Adams was an enthusiastic sportsman, he had a fishing lodge in Canada, from which he sent his Ashburnham friends fresh salmon, and a hunting preserve in Virginia. He was interested in the propagation of fish, and for some years leased from the town of Ashburnham, Upper Naukeag Lake, where he maintained a summer home on an island.

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