History of The London Eskimos
 

Welcome to my new blog, where I'll be reporting on the history of the London Eskimos. It's 1946 and the world is beginning to come to terms with the after effects of the Second World War, the return of sport welcomed by all. The friendship between the UK and our allies in the US has been strengthened by MLB helping to kickstart a new professional baseball league here in the UK - featuring the following 8 franchises -

Birmingham Metro Stars
Bristol Zebras
Glasgow Firebirds
Kingston upon Hull Kangaroos
Manchester 89'ers
Leeds Winter Hawks
Liverpool Liberty
London Eskimos

The 1946 season features an 84 game regular season where all teams will face each other 12 times each (in one division). The top 4 franchises will make the best of 7 playoffs.

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The Eskimos are predicted to finish 7th of the 8, but in an incredibly tight league, the prediction puts us just one win outside of the playoffs! Should be an exciting season. First up, we make the long trip to windy Glasgow, a team expected to be solidly in the playoff mix. I'll write my report of the 3 game series on the incredibly long train journey from Glasgow to Bristol!

There's nothing like the excitement of opening day, especially with a whole new league. Unfortunately it didn't go well. The home Glasgow crowd were in full voice anyway, but a sixth inning which saw them score 5 runs only increased the noise levels - with great hilarity from the crowd due to 3 errors from London in that one half inning (only 1 of the 5 runs was earned).

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23 year old pitcher Brandon Keely (recently named the second best pitching prospect in the league) wasn't best pleased with his team after taking that loss!

Game 2 was a tight affair - London had 5 hits to Glasgow's 2, but seemed to hit into a double play after each hit - Glasgow squeaked it 1-0.

Game 3 was worse, a deserved 7-1 loss.

So, not the start fans of London's new baseball team will have hoped for. It's early days, but here's hoping that the nine game road stretch to start the season won't turn into a disaster. Let's hope we give the fans something to shout about in Bristol.

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The second series of the season is now in the books, and things are looking a little brighter for the Eskimos. Heading into the series with an 0-3 record, they won the first game of the series (and their first game of the season). They followed this up with another win, before the Zebras nabbed game 3. This gives London a 2-4 record as they head to Liverpool for the final series of this 3 series road stretch.

Notable achievements in the series were Jack Beattie's home run in game 2 of the series (the first ever for him and indeed the Eskimos) and a complete game for starting pitcher Steven Reygan in the opening game.

Worryingly for the Eskimos they are last in the league in runs scored, batting average and on-base percentage too.

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Player Spotlight

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Matthew Nicholls is the old man of the entire league and is also the highest earner, with a staggering salary of $70,000 - and is ranked the 4th best position player in the league. Right now he is batting .158 and has just a single RBI, so maybe that age is catching up with him. However, the smart money says that when Nicholls clicks, so will the Eskimos! Watch this space.

So that's the end of the nine game stretch road stretch to start the season and London are currently 3-6. With series against the 2nd/3rd/4th teams in the predicted standings, that record isn't a terrible one, although 4-5 would have felt a bit sweeter.

The Liverpool series started well, winning the opening game 8-4 and the Eskimos hitting 2 homers in a game for the first time. A 6-0 loss followed, while the final game was a tight 3-4 reverse.

Excitement levels are high in London right now, as the Eskimos play their first ever home game tomorrow, against the 5-4 Metro Stars - the Stars predicted to finish the league in last place. It's too early to call it a must win series, but it's a must win series!

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The optimism of a new season seems a million miles away right now. After a tough road stretch where London started the year 3-6, optimism was high for the first home series, facing the Birmingham Metro Stars, who were predicted to finish last come the end of the year.

The series was a disaster from start to finish. The Stars swept the series 3-0 - which is a disaster in itself. In the series, Birmingham outscored us 21 runs to 5. The final game of the three saw a 9-0 reverse, where we gave up 15 hits to 4 - but hey London did win something! London had 4 errors to Birmingham's none.

We might be only 12 games in, but a 5 game losing streak this early on will have even the normally tolerant owner Luke Doon asking questions of first year manager Archie Lockhart. Rumour has it that Lockhart kept his team in the locker room long after the end of that 9-0 reverse, with some strong words expressed on both sides.

A day off today, followed by another home series against the 6-6 Kangaroos.

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We're now 15 games into the season and right now London are the worst team in baseball :( The 4-11 start is not how this was supposed to go - are the appointments of a rookie general manager and a rookie manager coming home to roost?

But let's not be completely down. In those 5 series London have played the 4 top franchises in the predicted standings, three of those on the road. Which means a 'par score' for these games is around 6-9/7-8 - just a couple of games back of where we're expected to be.The fact is also, we're only 4 games out of the playoffs with 69 regular season games to go.

Next up for London is a home series against the 9-6 Manchester 89'ers who have just lost 4 in a row after an incredible 9-2 start, a franchise predicted to finish on the same number of wins as us. A winning series and things will look a little brighter.

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As you can see, things aren't improving for London, with another home series loss - the Eskimos have lost all three home series now and are alone at the bottom of the standings, already 5 games out of the playoffs.

To make matters worse, lead off batter Matt Nicholls faces 4 weeks on the sidelines - the league's highest earner. Things are looking grim.

Bob Jones, the baseball writer of the London Evening Standard has put the blame on Jack Beattie, the London second Baseman, in the following hard-hitting article.

"Just three weeks into the season and the high hopes that the Eskimos had for a playoff run are already looking like pie in the sky. This team can't buy a win right now - my 90 year old grandmother has more teeth than that attack.

So, what's going wrong? There's no easy answer to this crisis, but I'm going to single out one player who has been woefully under performing. Jack Beattie. The London 2nd baseman has one role - batting number 3 he has to drive those runs in. https://i.postimg.cc/9MhXgyPx/london2.png
This team has two star players - Matthew Nicholls, the lead off man, and Jack Beattie. Nicholls is doing his job. His batting average might not say so, but with a league leading 18 walks already, he has an on base percentage is 0.427 - he is doing his job and doing it well.

Now let's come to Beattie - Nicholls is teeing him up, and what is he doing with it? Nothing! He's batting 0.194, with on OPS of 0.575. This guy should have more RBI's than anyone in this league - but he's back in the pack. He currently has a WAR of exactly 0! He is playing at the same level as a replacement.

With Matt Nicholls out for a month, the weight of this team is now on Beattie's shoulders. If Beattie doesn't raise his game, this London team cannot turn this around. Over to you Jack'