Major League Baseball told their sport was invented in Surrey, not America

Baseball was not invented in America but in genteel Surrey, according to evidence that has just come to light.

A diary has been found which describes the game being played by a teenager in Guildford in 1755.

Previously it had been thought that the game developed in America in the 1790s.

But this new proof indicates that the British can claim to have invented yet another of the world's great games, formerly considered as American as apple pie.

The handwritten entry was discovered in the diary of lawyer William Bray. It documents a game with friends on Easter Monday 1755, when he was still a teenager.



Local historian Tricia St John Barry found the diary in a shed near Guildford and the entry was later verified as authentic by Julian Pooley, manager of the Surrey History Centre in Woking and an expert of Bray.

Surrey County Council later wrote to Major League Baseball (MLB), the governing body of the sport in the US, to inform the institution of the find.

It said the MLB had accepted that the diary did contain the earliest known manuscript reference to baseball in the world.

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."

A digital version of the entry is due to go on display at the Woking centre soon.

Mr Pooley has also worked closely with MLB on the production of a documentary film tracing the origins of the game, called Base Ball Discovered

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/baseball/2800199/Major-League-Baseball-told-their-sport-was-invented-in-Surrey-not-America.html?DCMP=EMC-new_12092008