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British Baseball v. American Baseball.

Walsall to Play Yankees in America.

To test the mettle of British baseballers against those of the country which admittedly refined the old game of rounders and brought it back here as a vastly improved sport, the Walsall club, the best the kingdom has to offer, will travel to the United States to play series of exhibition matches against the New York Yankees, champions of the American major leagues, beginning Monday next. The club are already sailing towards Baltimore, Maryland, where the first match will be played.

The Yankees club are acknowledged to be the best in America. They have won more than 90 matches each of the last four seasons (the American major leagues play a fixture list of 154 matches each season); have won their division each of the past three; and won their first so-called “World’s Series” cup from erstwhile champions New York Giants on October 15. The club boast the services of outfielder Babe Ruth, the behemoth baseballer dubbed “Sultan of Swat”, and who made 41 home runs this season (but has hit 54 and 59 during previous years), whilst compiling a hits average of .393 and also causing 130 runs to be batted in. He has been credited with virtually inventing the home run in the American game, and no other batsman comes close to his ability in this regard. Ruth is also a splendid pitcher and the holder of several pitching “records”, but he has given up the mound for good to concentrate on his extraordinary batting skills.

Ruth is supported by first base man Wally Pipp and fellow outfielders Bob Meusel and Lawton “Whitey” Witt. The club are also led by a company of very good pitchers: “Sad” Sam Jones; “Bullet” Joe Bush; Bob Shawkey; Waite Hoyt; and Herb Pennock. Each of these five pitchers won at least 16 matches and finished the season with an earned runs average between 3.02 and 3.63, which in the high attack American game is considered quite good.

Yankees will meet Swifts for the first match in Baltimore on October 29, for the first in a series of ten scheduled matches. From there the clubs will travel throughout the American south, going next to Washington, D.C.; then to Richmond, Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. They will play one match in each town during the course of the week. The clubs will then sail to Havana, Cuba for a series of four matches to be played the following week, after which the Walsall club will sail back to Britain. The series is taking place in the southern states because the weather is considered to be too cold in the north to play baseball at this time of year.

Walsall will sport their full squad, featuring Jamie Ramsay, Laurence Elcock, Freddie Eadle, Moses Lowe, and Rupert Price at the bat. Augustus Wilkes, Freddie Moylan, Eli Hobbs, and Will Stanton will lead Swifts from the mound, and Dominic Gwinnett of the Bristol City club will also join Swifts for this trip. They will also take with them to America the EOI Cup, to show off both to American audiences and to the Yankee club as means to confirm their worthiness to participate in this series. Most Yanks (both the club and the people) have scant idea of the British game or of our Champions, and so this may serve as an introduction to both. Swifts also intend to use the accompaniment of the Cup on their voyage as inspiration as they take to the pitch against the American Champions.

Results will be reported each day in this newspaper, to be written by the American Associated Press and cabled across the sea. The whole of Britain is very excited and eager for our success in this series. If Walsall can win half the matches against the Yankees, it will be seen as a resounding success, and a clear validation of the idea that baseball is being played at the world's highest level here in the British Isles.

Good luck, boys, and show those Yanks what’s what!