Was Baseball Invented in Britain?

[Andrew of Ware]

From the Press Trust of India

I also heard this on BBC Radio Two this morning, but so far there is nothing on the BBC website. A diary entry from a teenager in Guildford, England in 1755.

ent to Stroke Church this morning. After dinner, went to Miss Jeale's to play at base ball with her ...

The entry has been verified by the Surrey History Centre and Surrey County Council have written to the National Baseball League to inform them of the find. Said a councillor,

Baseball is an integral part of American life and this news about a national obsession in the US, where home-grown sports have traditionally dominated, will reverberate far and wide.

From what little I know about baseball, I believe that the earliest rules of the game appeared in England, but the rules seem to describe rounders. So could this teenager have been playing rounders rather than baseball?

Edited to add: Found it on the main BBC website.

[blucanary]

I'd imagine games similar to baseball were "invented" in communities around the world. I mean think about cricket, rounders, baseball, and kickball, they all sorta follow the same idea. Hit the ball as far as you can and run faster than they can get it back. The rules are just slightly different.

[Floater]

There is a variant of baseball in Finland (pesäpallo in Finnish, boboll in Swedish). It was introduced in the 1920s by a gym teacher who altered the rules a bit in an attempt to make the game exciting to the spectators and he succeeded so much that it is now considered a national sport

[Hans Off]

Originally Posted by Floater

There is a variant of baseball in Finland (pesäpallo in Finnish, boboll in Swedish). It was introduced in the 1920s by a gym teacher who altered the rules a bit in an attempt to make the game exciting to the spectators and he succeeded so much that it is now considered a national sport

I think wour post got truncated slightly...

Let me correct it...

It was introduced in the 1920s by a gym teacher who altered the rules a bit in an attempt to make the game exciting to the spectators and he succeeded so much that it is now considered a national sport called rallying.

There, that's better...