If not, we have here an addition to UK patois, because baseball players do this a lot, and I am gobsmacked to see it as headline for a Times of London publication article.

Haruki Murakami
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Still swinging for the fences: Murakami in conversation

Roland Kelts talks to the novelist about his legacy, his critics and the pleasures of translation (see below)

OK. Looked it up and answer is yes.

Not to worry, then, about further corrupting the Queen’s English.

But baseball is older, right? Wrong.

And look that up for yourselves. It’s too rich and complicated an issue for this blog. Sorry.

Changed my mind about that:

Cricket is older, the first definite mention of the game is found in a 1598 court case concerning an ownership dispute over a plot of common land in Guildford, Surrey. A 59-year old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played creckett on the site fifty years earlier when they attended the Free School.

Derrick’s account proves beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey circa 1550, the first published account of baseball wasn’t untill 1744 where a publication in England by children’s publisher John Newbery called A Little Pretty Pocket-Book includes a woodcut and a rhyme entitled “Base-ball.” There were older games that can be seen as precursors to both games.

If you want the modern versions of the game, the first international cricket match was played in 1844 while the first official game of baseball played with codified rules was 19th June 1846.

OK!