From the AP:

Baseball is as American as ... tea and crumpets?

That may be case, according to a diary uncovered in southern England last year but only now being made public.

Julian Pooley, the manager of the Surrey History Centre, said Thursday he has authenticated a reference to baseball in a diary by English lawyer William Bray dating back to 1755 -- about 50 years before what was previously believed to have been the first known reference to what became the American pastime.

I am not knocking the British or anything but how can we tell that it still wasn't "invented" in the US (colonies) and taken back to Britain? I would have to guess that there were just a few ships going back and forth between the 2 hemispheres back then.