William Bray and the True Discovery of Baseball in 1755 (sources)

Bray, William. Diary Entries 1754-1755 (1755). MLB.com. Web. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/images/mediacenter/baseball_discovered/1755.jpg

 

AP. "Baseball Diaries: Earliest Reference to American Pastime Found in England - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News - FOXNews.com." FOXNews.com - Breaking News | Latest News | Current News. 12 Sept. 2008. Web. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,421464,00.html

 

Olmos, Edward J. "Baseball Discovered: Bray Diary | MLB.com: Media Center." The Official Site of Major League Baseball | MLB.com: Homepage. Web. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/mediacenter/baseball_discovered/braydiary.jsp

William Bray and the True Discovery of Baseball in 1755 (continued)

An interesting fact about Bray’s documentation was that half of the players involved were women, when baseball is purely considered a male sport. There are other variations of baseball in our current society that incorporate women, such as softball, but apparently baseball was not a unisex sport when it was first created. This is probably more of an indication that the game William Bray participated in was only mildly competitive and more for leisure than the fierce competition that the game has evolved into today.

The discovery of this documentation of a first-person experience playing the game of baseball in England has definitely debunked the mystery of where our nation’s pastime was created. Sir William Bray would have never thought that his daily diary entries would be the missing piece to a century-old question. His original diary is now on display at the Surrey History Centre in England. Also, a documentary containing the diary and the accidental discovery of it by Tricia St. John Barry is going in to the Sports Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

William Bray and the True Discovery of Baseball in 1755

William Bray's Diary Entry (3/31/1755)

The discovery of baseball has always been a controversial topic. Many believed that America’s great national pastime was a sport that originated in America sometime around the 18^th century. While others believed that it originated in a European country, taking after sports like la soule (France) and rounders (Great Britain). While there was no physical evidence, it was just widely accepted that baseball originated in North America because the sport is so prominent in our culture and history.

Things changed in 2008 when Tricia St. John Barry found what she thought was an “exercise book written by a child” in her cottage in England. Well it turned out that it was no exercise book at all, it was Sir William Bray’s 1754-1755 diary entries.

Bray wrote the diary as a routine daily transaction, accounting for all the events he participated in. And his entry on Easter Sunday, 1755 contained the first written account of a game referred to as "base ball" being played. His diary entry for that day read:

Went to Stoke church this morn.- After dinner, went to Miss Jeale's to play at base ball with her the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford and H. Parsons. Drank tea and stayed til 8. –William Bray (March, 31, 1755)

Evidence that the sport being played was "base ball"