consist of seven or nine innings. Curry was an advocate of the seven-inning format and was appointed to a committee to consider the question. Although the majority of the Knickerbockers sided with Curry on the seven-inning format, Louis F. Wadsworth (who favored the nine-inning format) called for a convention among the baseball clubs to agree on a format. The convention (known as the first National Association meetings) was held in 1857, at which time the delegates approved the nine-inning format. In his history of early baseball, John Thorn wrote that the adoption of Wadsworth's nine-inning format marked the end of power for the Knickerbockers' "Old Fogy" clique. Claim as "Father of Baseball" In 1905, Al Spalding wrote in his Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide that "the original Knickerbocker Club should be honored and remembered as the founders of our national game." In particular, he cited 11 original Knickerbockers as deserving of the honor, including Curry, Doc Adams, Alexander Cartwright, E. R. Dupignac, William Wheaton and William H. Tucker. In March 1894, a controversy developed when James Whyte Davis, who had been president of the Knickerbockers from 1858 to 1860, announced plans to request ten cent subscriptions from baseball players so that, upon his death, a tombstone could be erected identifying him as the "Father of Baseball." (This request was not fulfilled, but in 2016 SABR finally provided a tombstone, but with a different inscription.) Davis's request drew an angry letter from an anonymous baseball person that was published in The Sporting Life. The letter included the following comments about Curry:"Mr. Curry was one of the organizers of the Knickerbocker Club and was elected the first president of that organization in 1845 at the club's first meeting. He was on the Committee on Rules and helped draft the first rules under which base ball was regularly played. So if any one deserves the title of 'Father of Base Ball,' Mr. Curry does and not Mr. Davis." Curry died one month after the controversy. He was buried at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery with a white marble monument identifying him as the "Father of Baseball." In his 2003 book "Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery," baseball historian Peter Nash wrote that Green-Wood is the common resting place of four men vying for the "Father of Baseball" title—Curry, Henry Chadwick, William Wheaton, and William Tucker. Nash opined that "a case can be made that "Curry,