Surrey pitches for title of first home of baseball

Oct 8, 2008
Documentary proof has been uncovered that baseball was being played in Britain before it was taken up in America.

A diary entry which refers to a game played in Guildford, Surrey, in 1755 has been verified as authentic by the Surrey History Centre.

The mention of baseball was found in the diary of an 18th century lawyer, William Bray. It documents a game with friends on Easter Monday 1755, when he was a teenager.

Major League Baseball, the governing body of the sport in the United States, has accepted that the diary, found in a shed near Guildford by a local historian, Tricia St John Barry, contains the earliest known manuscript reference to baseball. It had been thought that the game, which is one of the most popular sports in the United States, began in the 1790s.

Julian Pooley, the manager of Surrey History Centre, has now worked with Major League Baseball on the production of a documentary film tracing the origins of the game, called Base Ball Discovered.

Source: Times Online