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ShareLONDON: Nothing 'American' about it! Baseball, the US's treasured national game, was invented in Britain, it has emerged.
Previously it was believed that the game developed in America in the 1790s. But, historians in Britain claim to have found evidence that baseball was being played in Britain long before the US.
They have based their findings on a diary entry which describes the game being played by a teenager in Guildford in Surrey in 1755, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.
The handwritten entry, discovered in the diary of lawyer William Bray, documents a game with friends on Easter Monday 1755, when he was still a teenager. "Went to Stroke Church this morning. After dinner, went to Miss Jeale's to play at base ball with her ..." it reads.
Historian Tricia St John Barry found the diary in a shed near Guildford and the entry was later verified as authentic by Julian Pooley, the Manager of the Surrey History Centre in Woking and an expert of Bray.
Surrey County Council has written to Major League Baseball (MLB), the governing body of the sport in the US, to inform the institution of the find.
Councillor Helyn Clack of Surrey County Council said: "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.
"It is a game steeped in history and now Surrey County Council's History Centre and an inquisitive local historian have provided the earliest manuscript proof that the game the Americans gave to the world came from England."
