Monday, September 01, 2008

Bat and ball.

Americans will tell you that baseball is a native American game invented by one Abner Doubleday in 1839. Tosh - utter tosh and they know it! There is plenty of documentary evidence that baseball originated in England in the mid-1700s. Another myth however is that baseball is a derivative of rounders (if you really want to annoy an American, tell them that their national game is essentially a game for girls!). However more modern research suggests that it is more likely that rounders emerged as a derivative of baseball rather than the other way round. Or indeed that both games originated independently - we tend to forget in today's information age that back then things could be going on in the next village of which you could be completely unaware. Any road up, baseball was definitely introduced to the Americas by settlers from over here.

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