Bashers. It's Shanghainese for Cricket

Did baseball begin in 18th-century England?

There is an excellent article and video on CNN on the origins of baseball.

“An extract from an 18th-century diary containing the oldest known reference to baseball is among the items on display in a new exhibition in London exploring the English origins and cricketing connections of America’s national sport.

“While baseball was once claimed to have been invented in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, recent findings suggest a sport of the same name may have evolved decades earlier alongside cricket, crossing the Atlantic with English settlers to the American colonies.”