Some British historians claim to have confirmed that baseball has its roots in British bat-and-ball sports: Local historians in Surrey have confirmed evidence that baseball was played in the UK more than 20 years before American independence. A diary 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. Major League Baseball, the governing body of the game in the US, has been informed of the discovery.
It was nice of the British historians to "inform" Major League Baseball about this, though there really wasn't any need for them to do it. Why? Because it was American researchers working on a documentary for Major League Baseball who discovered this in the first place.
Produced by MLB Originals, the documentary Base Ball Discovered premiered back in June at the Society for American Baseball Research convention in Cleveland. I was in attendance for the film's premiere, and it's really quite good. It examines baseball's early history -- the origin story, really -- via an exploration of baseball's relationship to cricket, rounders, bat and trap, and stool ball. Part of the film involves the producers' search for the earliest use of the words "base ball" they could find.
Produced by MLB Originals, the documentary Base Ball Discovered premiered back in June at the Society for American Baseball Research convention in Cleveland. I was in attendance for the film's premiere, and it's really quite good. It examines baseball's early history -- the origin story, really -- via an exploration of baseball's relationship to cricket, rounders, bat and trap, and stool ball. Part of the film involves the producers' search for the earliest use of the words "base ball" they could find.
According to the BBC article, Bray's diary was discovered in a garden shed. Far from the breaking news the BBC makes this out to be, that discovery -- which probably took place sometime in 2007 -- is recounted in the film. It happened when the nice old British lady who owned the shed saw a story on the local news about the MLB documentarians roaming the English countryside. She seemed to remember having read the words "base ball" in it once, and immediately contacted the film's producers, assuming that they'd be interested. The discovery of it and the review by the MLB folks provides the climax to the entire documentary. Reds relief pitcher Billy Bray -- who was in town for a series against the Indians -- was even in attendance at the premiere because he's supposedly a descendant of old William Bray of Guilford. He was so moved that he failed to put out the fire in the Reds' ugly 6-0 loss that night.
So this isn't exactly news. But really, did you expect anything different from the British? First they insisted on strict enforcement of the Navigation Acts. Then they abused Writs of Assistance. Then they impressed our sailors on the high seas. Now they try to steal the discoveries of our historians. It's just one damn thing after another with those guys.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-12-2008 @ 4:34AM
Rich said...
We English invented the world's most popular sports. We invented some rubbish ones like baseball, so we stopped playing those. All English kids play rounders at school, which is basically baseball, but then stop after you grow out of it (at about 8 years old usually), and play a proper game that the whole world plays and cares about -football. (Soccer to you ignoramuses). Hope this helps :-)
Reply