{"id":622,"date":"2008-09-12T13:11:05","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T12:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=622"},"modified":"2019-11-09T21:46:17","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T21:46:17","slug":"baseball-established-in-britain-in-1755","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=622","title":{"rendered":"Baseball: established in Britain in 1755?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to think that the very presence of BaseballGB<\/em> helps to debunk the myth that Britain and baseball don’t go together.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes we might be the minority on this island of ours, but there are Brits who passionately follow the MLB season and\/or who play for one of the many domestic baseball teams (or who play roles as umpires, official scorers etc).\u00c2\u00a0 And on top of this current interest in the sport, Britain has deep historic links with baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 A recent discovery<\/a> by a local historian in Surrey has provided some exciting new evidence of just how far back Britain’s relationship with baseball stretches.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

A hand-written diary entry<\/a> by a lawyer called William Bray reveals that baseball was being played near Guildford, Surrey in 1755.\u00c2\u00a0 The diary was found in a shed by a local historian and has been authenticated by the Surrey History Centre and MLB as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153earliest known manuscript reference to the sport\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

As with any such discovery, it adds another fascinating piece to the puzzle of baseball’s origins.\u00c2\u00a0 Martin Hoerchner wrote an article<\/a> for the UK Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research<\/a> (SABR) back in May 1997 in which he explained that baseball \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was played extensively in different parts of Britain in the 1700\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s – yet in that time period exactly four references to baseball have been found\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 Confusingly, Hoerchner then appears to offer five references to the sport.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether the figure was four or five, we do know that this latest discovery has increased the number of references by one.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two of the previously found references are recognised in the press release<\/a> by Surrey County Council.\u00c2\u00a0 Jane Austen famously (well, famously for British baseball fans at least) included a reference to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Northanger Abbey, written in 1798 and published nineteen years later.\u00c2\u00a0 Austen included the sport as one of the activities favoured by Catherine in the novel:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to books\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although it does\u00c2\u00a0appear in a work of fiction, that certainly doesn’t reduce the significance of the reference.\u00c2\u00a0 While it might not directly prove that people were playing baseball in the late eighteenth century, the fact that it was recorded in a novel at the time is still very telling.\u00c2\u00a0 For Austen to have thought to include it, not only must she have known of people playing baseball, but she also must have believed that her readership would recognise the reference as well.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The same can be said for the reference in A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, written by John Newbery in 1744.\u00c2\u00a0 Just because it’s included in a book of fiction doesn’t mean it was the product of the author’s imagination.\u00c2\u00a0 The four-line passage certainly gives you\u00c2\u00a0reason to draw a line from England in 1744 to the Major Leagues in 2008.<\/p>\n

Base-Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ball once struck off,
\nAway flies the Boy,
\nTo the next destined Post,
\nAnd then Home with Joy.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Think of a baseball commentator excitedly announcing that a player is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rounding third and heading for home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then look back over the final two lines from the above passage.\u00c2\u00a0 The “post” reference reminds you more of rounders and maybe the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it refers to is the boy’s actual home (and he’s heading there with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153joy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because of the fun he’s just had), but perhaps the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the boy arrived at may also represent a distant link to the home plate that Major Leaguers cross today?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other three references noted by Hoerchner are not recognised in Surrey’s press release.\u00c2\u00a0 All three (from 1700, 1738 and 1748) pre-date Bray’s diary entry and it’s a bit unclear how this affects the claim of it being the earliest reference.\u00c2\u00a0 The latest discovery came to light after MLB.com sent a documentary crew over to Britain in 2007 to trace the origins of the sport.\u00c2\u00a0 The UK chapter of SABR were treated to\u00c2\u00a0a premiere showing<\/a> of the completed documentary earlier this year, at which the original version of Bray’s diary was put on display.\u00c2\u00a0 If SABR-UK had clear evidence of earlier references to the sport, one would assume that MLB would have been made aware of it.\u00c2\u00a0 So, something doesn’t quite tally there.\u00c2\u00a0 If a reader could shed some light on this, I would be very interested to receive your comments.<\/p>\n

Hoerchner reminds us<\/a> that when we read references to baseball it’s important to remember that while they reveal people were playing, and writing about, a sport called baseball (or base ball) three hundred years ago, that’s not to say we would instantly recognise it as such.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, this holds true for all sports.\u00c2\u00a0 In his social history of early modern England, J.A. Sharpe states that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153football was, by the early eighteenth century, already well established, although it was very unlike the modern game\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 In some cases the game would be played \u00e2\u20ac\u0153over two miles of countryside\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> by a large number of people from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neighbouring parishes or from rival parts of the same village\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a big distance between this scene and the game watched by billions around the world today, but it goes to show how sports have developed and evolved over many, many years.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems logical that America’s National Pastime somehow evolved out of the bat and ball games played in eighteenth century England (and earlier?).\u00c2\u00a0 The very use of the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u009d only strengthens the argument, although we may never be able to definitively chart the lineage from MLB in the twenty-first century back to a Surrey lawn or field in 1755.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

What we do know is that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has been a small part of Britain’s popular culture for over 250 years.\u00c2\u00a0 British baseball fans today are not merely adopting a foreign game, we are embracing a sport that has a long history in our home land.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a fact worth remembering the next time some oaf tries to tell you that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in Britain, baseball is called rounders\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

We call it baseball and we’ve been calling it baseball for several hundred years.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

J.A. Sharp, Early Modern England: A Social History 1550-1760<\/span>, (London, 2003), p.291.<\/p>\n

As well as the links provided above, you can read more about “A Little Pretty Pocket-Book” in another article by Martin Hoerchner here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Note that a scan of the actual “base-ball” page is included in the SABR-UK Anthology pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to think that the very presence of BaseballGB helps to debunk the myth that Britain and baseball don’t go together.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes we might be the minority on this island of ours, but there are Brits who passionately follow the MLB season and\/or who play for one of the many domestic baseball teams (or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[558],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-cobb","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21387,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/21387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}