On Easter Monday 1755, a young man named William Bray and a select group of young ladies and gents from Guildford, took part in one of the earliest recorded examples of a game of baseball. They made tea afterwards and by all accounts had a ripping good time. Mr. Bray immortalised the day in ink between the covers of one of his many diaries and returned to his work. However, the events of that Easter Monday were to be forgotten for over two hundred and fifty years.

Baseball is the national sport of the United States of America. The game is believed to be the mutant offspring of cricket and rounders, two sports that were popular with British and Irish settlers in the 18th century. After conventional bat-and-ball games fell by the wayside, baseball and American football rose to take their place, becoming extremely popular with professional players, young sluggers, and armchair umpires alike. The rules used in the modern game – an evolution of the Knickerbocker rules – are credited to Alexander Cartwright, whose team were walloped 23-1 in the first ever official baseball game on June 19th 1846.

The discovery of Mr. Bray’s diary by local historian, Tricia St John Barry, changes not only the date that baseball was conceived but also the country in which it was born. It reads: "After dinner, went to Miss Jeale's to play at base ball [sic] with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford and H. Parsons. Drank tea and stayed ‘til 8."

While Major League Baseball (MLB) still recognises Alex Cartwright as the inventor of the modern game, the US governing body has accepted that the diary entry provides the first irrefutable documentary evidence of an actual baseball game, adding forty-five years to the sport’s illustrious history. Some fans have noted that the change continues an American tradition of borrowing and improving other sports: “We've always known that baseball evolved - it wasn't invented like basketball” said Kevin Sullivan, a correspondent for the Washington Post.

William Bray lived to the ripe old age of ninety-six. He wrote a great number of journals documenting his life and that of the town around him that have contributed to the local history of Surrey. His account of ‘base ball’ is perhaps the most important passage that his pen ever wrote and while Bray may never reach the dizzy heights of diarists like Samuel Pepys or Anne Frank, he will forever be remembered as one of the founding fathers of one of the world’s most popular sports: “That most American of all games springing from Surrey, can you imagine such a thing?”, one BBC Radio Four presenter commented on Thursday.

Recently, US baseball has been rocked by the advance of Hurricane Ike. The Houston Astros have had two of their games postponed whilst torrential rain also forced a number of other teams to alter their schedule. With the World Series just over a month away, fans will be looking to the Astros to pursue the Los Angeles Angels into the postseason period when their fixtures resume on Saturday.

Written by Chris Illingworth