Baseball Played in Surrey in 1755

Legend has it that American baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday when he laid out the first diamond in Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. This is, of course, not true, Mr. Doubleday having moved from Cooperstown the year before. However, a scrap of history has come to light suggesting baseball was being played in England 20 years before the Battle of Lexington and Concorde began the American Revolution.

The BBC says, “a diary entry that documents a game being played in Guildford in 1755 has been verified by Surrey History Centre. William Bray, a Surrey diarist and historian from Shere, wrote about the game when he was still a teenager.” It adds, “William Bray lived from 1736 to 1832 and worked as a solicitor, a steward of Surrey manors and a Surrey historian.” In other words, it’s a pretty reliable source.

Literary types will, of course, already be aware that the game had long been established before the alleged founding of the game in 1839. Jane Austin’s otherwise unreadable Northanger Abbey makes mention of the game. The monstrosity was written between 1797 and 1798.

Julian Pooley, Surrey History Centre manager and William Bray expert, told the BBC, “He kept lots and lots of diaries that we have in the Surrey History Centre but last year a new one was discovered in a garden shed and it contains his diary from 1754 to 1755. It contains a reference to him playing baseball. What intrigued me is he is playing it with a load of young ladies.” Clearly Mr. Pooley has never attended a game in the US, where about half the fans are ladies of varying ages.

Major League Baseball has been informed of the news, but the Lords of Baseball have yet to respond. However, Kevin Sullivan, the Washington Post's London bureau correspondent and an avid Boston Red Sox fan, told BBC Radio Four's “Today” program, “It’s a great American tradition to take things from other places and improve them. We’ve always known that baseball evolved - it wasn’t invented like basketball.” True, except even in Ms. Austen’s work, there was no mention of the designated hitter rule. Not everything has been an improvement.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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