There has been some controversy regarding baseball’s origins recently. According to Julian Norridge, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey mentions baseball well before it was reported to have been invented in America. Furthermore, Norridge says that there is mention of the sport in a diary from Surrey dated 1775.
I do not care where or when baseball originated, but Stephen Colbert, of the Colbert Report, gave Jane Austen a “Wag of His Finger” last week. The Austen bit is directly after the wag at the Pope. Colbert’s take on Austenian romance had me quite diverted.
–Jane, loves diversion