March 16, 2011 Baseball's official historian, John Thorn, sets the record straight on the game's earliest days ... in the 1700s. Yes, that's right, baseball started decades before Abner Doubleday supposedly created the game at Cooperstown — and it only became popular when professional gamblers took an interest.
The link provided is the broadcast of the interview...check it out by clicking "Listen to the Story"
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134570...-earliest-days