Baseball has long been known as America's Pastime, as it was supposedly first invented by Civil War general Abner Doubleday back in 1839. This has long been the accepted truth about baseball's creation, but in recent years it's starting to look more and more likely that Doubleday had nothing to do with inventing the sport.After all, he never took credit for it, and after his death Doubleday left a lot of papers and letters to his family. None of them ever mentioned baseball. So if Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball, just who in the hell did? Well, if you were to ask a couple of Brits, they'd tell you it was author Jane Austen.
According to author Julian Norridge baseball originated in Britain, and part of his proof comes from a reference in Jane Austen's novel "Northanger Abbey."Another intriguing fact: The original title of Pride and Prejudice was Pride, Prejudice, and the Suicide Squeeze.
Norridge, whose book "Can we Have our Balls Back, Please?" focuses on Britain's role in writing the rulebooks for a long list of sports, says Austen mentioned baseball in the opening pages of "Northanger Abbey," which was written in 1797-98.
Norridge says that Austen referenced the sport while introducing her tomboy heroine Catherine Morland, writing: "It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books."
Okay, so Jane Austen didn't invent the game, but her book may be the earliest mention of the sport. Obviously if the book was written in 1797 that's 42 years before Doubleday supposedly invented the game, and the word baseball is clear as day in the book, so the English obviously knew what it was.
It's quite possible that baseball was played in England and that settlers who crossed the ocean brought the game with them, and it just didn't catch on for 40 years. Whatever the case may be, it's starting to look like baseball isn't really America's at all.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
The author's ignorance (or ill-attempted humor) leaves much to be desired.
First, I believe everyone knows Doubleday not only didn't invent baseball but may well have never seen a game. The only thing we can verify he was first at was Fort Sumter to start the Civil War.
Second, there were MANY games of "base" which were played in the USA, Britain and no doubt other places prior to Cartwright's writing down rules for the "New York Game" (not to be confused with the Massachusetts game, which continued to allow soaking the runner). These games, which included one to four bases, ins and outs and other things that are all an integral part of what has evolved into baseball, were often lumped together in games of "base," "base ball" and "baseball."
Thirdly, this "revelation" by the gents in Britain is nothing new. If I had known there was a buck or two to be made by this, I would have written a book myself.
If the book were written in 1797, that's a good five years after the by-laws prohibiting baseball were written in Pittsfield, MA.