Baseball Can No Longer Be Our Pastime

Well, this should pretty much make it official: Football is our country’s national sport, not baseball. The Brits have unearthed a diary entry written in England by a young man in 1755 that serves as a big slap in the face to Alexander Cartwright and the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York:↵↵⇥“Easter Monday 31 March 1755↵⇥↵⇥“Went to Stoke Ch. This morning. 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 & H. Parsons & Jelly. Drank Tea and stayed till 8.”↵⇥

↵↵The diary entry has been authenticated (he mentions tea! Must be real British writing!), so if it is indeed true, this means the English were playing our national pastime about 100 years before the first documented baseball game in America ever took place. Based on the slow, often boring, tedious and non-violent nature of the sport, we totally should’ve seen this coming. ↵↵But there is good news in all this: Now even the most diehard of baseball fans can admit with great patriotism that football is our real pastime. It’s the one remaining sport that we definitely invented, that doesn’t suck. Well, aside from slamball. And beer pong. ↵

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