Revolutionary-era baseball

It turns out that baseball was played in Massachusetts as early as 1791. That's right. 1791. Almost fifty years before Abner Doubleday allegedly invented the game in 1839 (a claim long disproved). To give some perspective, they were playing baseball in Pittsfield, Massachusetts just 16 years after Lexington and Concord. Baseball as America's Pastime? Certainly looks that way.

I've got to point out, however, that claiming that "Pittsfield is baseball's Garden of Eden," as Pittsfield mayor James Ruberto did, is a bit ingenuous. The fact that people were playing baseball in western Massachusetts in 1791 doesn't prove that the good people of Pittsfield were the inventors of baseball. All it proves is that, well, people were playing baseball in western Massachusetts in 1791.

The precise origins of baseball are unclear. This discovery doesn't clear up baseball was invented. Instead, it pushes those origins back further than expected.

This isn't to diminish the sheer coolness of Americans playing baseball soon after the birth of the nation. Who knows? Maybe John Adams played some ball in his day. Any ideas on the current major leaguer most similar to our second president?