Indeed it is now generally accepted that Baseball is derived from Rounders in some form or other, as it has been played in this islands for a couple of hundred years now and was probably brought over to America by the early settlers
Don't you just love that. We started baseball. Wonder what Babe Ruth thought of that. Maybe that cricket theory was right after all. Please accept my apologies for all the puns.
In fairness lots of irish lads went over and made a name for themselves in baseball.
Mickey "The Mick" Mantel was 1st generation irish.
Mickey Mantle had no Irish connections. He was from Oklahoma. Very few Irish born players ever played pro baseball, those that did were in the 19th century and moved to the States as children. Softball is almost the exact same as the Irish version of rounders. The only real difference is in Irish rounders the ball used is a sliothar. English rounders and our version of the game are very different indeed although international games have been played.
Americans were led to believe that a guy called Abner Doubleday, from Cooperstown NY, where the baseball hall of fame is located, was the inventor of baseball. It was Americas pasttime and therefore had to have been an American invention. However, games like baseball have been played in Europe for centuries. The earliest know reference to the game is in some German manuscript from the middle ages. In fact the game was called Baseball in England even before the English had colonies in North America. As far as I know there are variations of the game played in Romania, Finland, Ireland and England.
Even though there are very little differences between rounders and softball, the American game is now more popular in Ireland than our own version.
