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The Introduction of Baseball in Britain

Al Spalding wound up a great albeit short career with the National League’s Chicago White Stockings as a sore-armed 27-year old pitcher in 1877. An eventual Hall of Famer who futilely tried to recast himself as a first baseman before completely retiring from the field, Spalding became the team’s secretary en route to becoming its president in 1882 and, later, the founder of one of the greatest sporting goods manufacturers the world has ever known.

During his first year in his new capacity with the Chicago team, Spalding conceived the idea of evangelizing the sport of baseball by means of an around the world tour. Obtaining the financial backing of White Stockings’ owner William Hulbert, Spalding packed up twenty-two of the National League’s top ballplayers in October of 1878 and embarked on a six-and-a-half month journey to play exhibition games around the globe, departing from San Francisco en route to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France and, finally, Great Britain.

Having landed in England in early March of 1879, the Spalding contingent played two exhibition games in London (including one game played before Edward, Prince of Wales, who reportedly was smitten with the game he’d just seen). The group then traveled north to Birmingham, Derby, Stoke, Manchester and Bolton, before moving on to an unusually extended tour through Lancashire, the ancestral home of the Spalding family. The Lancashire leg of the tour encompassed the cities of Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn, Darwen, Preston, and Blackpool, from which the American baseballers embarked on their return trip home to the States.

While playing in Derby, Spalding caught the attention of another young entrepreneur named Francis Ley, the founder of Vulcan Iron Works. While not sporting himself, Ley was an enthusiastic proponent of the value of physical activity as a way to promote good health and increased productivity among his employees. He was entranced by the symmetry and pastoral beauty of the baseball pitch, as well as the game’s emphasis on specific and distinct roles for each player. Smitten with the game on at least an equal basis with His Royal Highness, Ley quickly sought the support of his fellow industrialists in the region to promote this young and youthful game among their workers. Thus began the collection of industrial-based clubs which formed the genesis of league baseball in the north of Britain.