Document Dates Baseball to 1791

Officials and historians in this western Massachusetts city released a 213-year-old document Tuesday that they believe is the earliest written reference to baseball.

The evidence comes in a 1791 bylaw that aims to protect the windows in Pittsfield’s new meetinghouse by prohibiting anyone from playing baseball within 80 yards of the building.

That bylaw would have been produced well before Abner Doubleday is said to have written the rules for the game in 1839.

Historian John Thorn was conducting research on the origins of baseball when he found a reference to the bylaw in an 1869 book on Pittsfield’s history.

He shared his find with former major leaguer and area resident Jim Bouton, who told city officials about the ordinance.

A librarian found the document in a vault at the Berkshire Athenaeum library. Its age was authenticated by researchers at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center.

“It’s clear that not only was baseball played here in 1791, but it was rampant,” Thorn said. “It was rampant enough to have an ordinance against it.”

The long-accepted story of baseball’s origins centers on Cooperstown, N.Y., where Doubleday is said to have come up with the rules for the modern game.

The Pittsfield group hopes its find puts to rest the debate about the game’s origins.

“Pittsfield is baseball’s Garden of Eden,” Mayor James Ruberto said.

But experts say it may be impossible to say exactly where and when baseball was created because it evolved from earlier games, such as cricket and rounders, another English game played with a bat and ball.

For now, the document will be kept in the vault until officials figure out how to properly display it in Pittsfield, a city of about 45,000.