"Jane Austen didn’t invent baseball. Baseball wasn’t originated in Britain just because the word baseball appeared in the Austen novel Northanger Abbey. Austen wasn’t writing about American baseball, but it was a Jane Austen version where the ball is not hurled about rudely…but introduced to the bat through proper channels at a society function. And one does not steal bases like a commoner, one sends word ahead to the next base by messenger requesting permission to approach at the base’s leisure. Of course, what the bat cannot reveal is that though he loves the ball desperately, he is sworn an oath of loyalty to the glove to whom the ball was promised, so the bat must pretend he hates the ball, swatting at it, although he wishes nothing more than to profess his undying affection, but he can’t, he mustn’t, he shan’t! And so, the bat must retreat to the gardens of his estate and…pine."