The (English) Baseball League (est. 1888): A History

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Financial Report

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Results

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Promoted Team: Newcastle United Magpies

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Promoted Team: Preston North End Lilywhites

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Final Table

Promotion and relegation between the two Divisions was again decided by a series of Test Matches, but there was a change of format from that used in the previous three seasons. The top two clubs in the Second Division and the bottom two in First Division met in an abbreviated “second season”. Each club played eight matches: two home and two away matches against each of the two sides from the other division. At the conclusion of the matches, the first and second sides in the second season league will play in the First Division, and the third and fourth sides in the Second Division.

Newcastle United Magpies and Preston North End Lilywhites are promoted to the First Division.

The three League sides facing re-election came up against seven non-league clubs in the vote for League membership. Voting (votes):

21      Woolwich Arsenal        Re-elected to the League
15	Liverpool Reds	        Re-elected to the League
13	Doncaster Rovers	Elected to the League
11	New Brighton Tower	Not elected to the League
9	Loughborough	        Not re-elected to the League
7	Nelson	                Not elected to the League
5	Glossop North End	Not elected to the League
3	Bristol City	        Not elected to the League
2	Stockport County	Not elected to the League
1	Chesterfiled Town	Not elected to the League

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division League Leaders

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1896
Second Division Financial Report

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The 1896 Season Almanac For The Baseball League is Now Available

http://goo.gl/EopbUE


The almanac for the 1896 Baseball League season can be acquired here, to be perused at your leisure. (WinRAR required to unzip the almanac.)

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1896 News & Notes

The performance of the divisions took some interesting and unusual divergences unique to each of them. In the First Division, where umpires where instructed to tighten up the strike zones and make hitters swing to speed up games in response to spectator complaints, walks dropped by an amazing -25.3% while strikeouts, interesting, also dropped, this by -3.0%. The effect to this was a nine point jump in league bating average, to .292, corresponding to an eleven point drop in on base percentage, to .351. Slugging remained basically the same at .391. The tightened zone, which forced pitchers to throw closer to the plate, also led to a dramatic decrease in wild pitches, down by about a full third (from 507 to 340). As a general result, run scoring dropped substantially, down -9% to 7,992 (from 8,791). Also down were triples (-12.3%), counterbalanced by an increase in doubles (+2.4%) and homers (+3.7%).

In the Second Division, where umpires were under no such edict, walks stayed basically the same, although pitchers were able to strike out more hitters (+6.0%). Doubles (+18.7%) and triples (+38.0) were way up while homers dropped (-7.4%). This caused slugging to spike by 27 points (to .398), bringing average (+10 points to .280) and on base (+7 points, to .349) along with it. In the end, this had the effect of leading the Second Division to outscore the First for the first time in history, with runs increasing +12.6% to 8,251.

Despite the drop in run scoring, numerous hitting records were set at the First Division level this year, including total bases (244) and slugging (.654) by Jay Jones of Bolton Wanderers; OPS of 1.117 by William Perry of Wolverhampton Wanderers (also the career leader and now over the millennium mark at 1.005); hits (154) by William Clark of Sunderland Black Cats; Triples (37) by Sydney Holdsworth of West Bromwich Albion, for the third time in his career; doubles (40) by William Roberts of Aston Villa Villans; RBI (95) by Frank Marshall of Sunderland; and singles (127) by Gerald Pemberton of The Wednesday Owls. Significant single games records set or tied include doubles (4, tied) by William Hills of Darwen on 11th July; and triples (3, tied) by William Stanton of Nottingham Forest on 9th June. On the pitching side of the ledger, Augustus Hunt set the record for appearing in the most games in a season this year, 45, for the Blues of Small Heath. No significant single game records were set by pitchers in 1896.

Team hitting records set by First Division teams include batting average (.321) and slugging percentage (.440) by Blackburn Rovers, total hits by Small Heath (1,066), with the old record of 1.046 also broken by Blackburn and Sunderland Black Cats (1,060 apiece); doubles (196) by Burnley Clarets; and stolen bases (234) for the second straight year by Bolton Wanderers. No team pitching records were set. There was a record set for overall attendance by Blackburn Rovers (216,770).

In the Second Division, batting records include singles (117) by Edwin Stevenson of Newcastle United; total bases (237) and slugging (.590) by Joshua Jackson of Everton Blues; hits (145) by Stevenson; and RBI (84) by Peter Howarth of Newcastle United Magpies. The hitting streak record was set by Richard Reid of Sheffield United, at 29 games, snapped on 2nd June. No individual pitching season records were set. On an individual game basis, Stevenson tied the hits record in a game with six on 29th July versus Manchester City; the runs scored record was tied, at five, by three players; the triples record of three was tied by seven players; the RBI record of seven tied by William McArthur of Woolwich Arsenal on 28th August and Cyril Wilson of Walsall on 5th August. Alfred Wood of Blackpool hit for the cycle against Woolwich Arsenal on 23rd July. No individual game pitching records of note were set or tied.

Loughborough Corinthians set the Second Division team record for losses with 65, which earned them a ticket out of the League. Newcastle United set a team record for batting average (.309), and hits (1,009), while tying the record for runs scored (625). Newly promoted Blackpool used their ballpark and roster construction to power their way to a triples record (122). No other team records of note were set.

William Gascoyne of Crewe Alexandra twirled a 3-0 no-hitter against Walsall at the Swifts home park on 22nd August, in front of 3,872. Gascoyne overcame four walks and two Railwaymen errors to complete the gem.

Major retirements of note include Alfred Armstrong of Blackburn, starting pitchers who’d been fighting injuries throughout 1894 and 1895, not pitching at all in 1896. He leaves with a 93-48/3.29 record. Alfred Anderson leaves Burnley after eight years and an injury-plagued 1896 with a 77-53 record and a 4.15 ERA. Most notable retirement in the Second Division was of Roland McCann of the Manchester City (ne Ardwick) Citizens. McCann leaves with an 83-62 won-loss and a terrific 2.93 ERA,

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I'm sorry, I've been slow in updating this thread because I have been fighting my computer for the past week after attempting to reformat the hard drive. I've run disc-based recovery operations five different times and continue to have software and hardware compatibility issues, and now I have to send in the thing to Lenovo, while I still have seven days left on the year-long warranty, so they can give it the once over, hopefully reload everything from scratch and test it, make sure everything works right, and send it back. I'm hoping it will be like getting a brand new computer. But in the meantime, I have a "loaner" machine going, so I am hoping this will be a good enough machine for the next couple weeks or so to allow me to update this even while my primary machine is basically out of commission.

TL;DR: I haven't been posting lately because of computer problems, but I'm almost over the hump on them, so I should be OK to post more soon.

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Season Starts To-Day, Hopes and Trepidation Pervade

Another spring has sprung, and with it comes the beginning of yet another British baseball season, played at all levels of course, but most well exemplified by the professionals of the English Baseball League. Theirs represents the pinnacle of athletic endeavours at any time of year, but particularly during the sweetly warm times of the year that lend themselves to lazy afternoons spent taking in a game.

The players are not seeing themselves as lazy layabouts, however. This baseball is all serious business to the men of the League, indeed, their vocation, and they aim to work harder and play harder than the competitors that stand between them and the League Cup. The favourites in the First Division this year appear to be usual clubs, including perennial champion Blackburn Rovers, the Black Cats of Sunderland and the Owls of The Wednesday, but this year Bolton Wanderers may be the surprise team making a move. The star of that squad is Jay Jones, the best centre fieldsman on the island, and who delivered his best year last season with a .405 hits average and fourteen home runs, one of the best batting seasons in memory. Wanderers have not exceeded fourth place as of yet, but all should keep an eye on them. One very large unknown also comes to the Division from Newcastle, as the Magpies of United swarm in with full force after the experience of having been expelled to the Midland League for 1894, reloaded with great force, then bullied their way back into the Top Flight a scant two years later. It should be quite interesting to see whether they have the wherewithal to make it in the big time once again.

In the Second Division, the newly-arrived Doncaster Rovers, late of the Midland circuit, bring a very strong side to the League. The names to which we should pay attention include their young and old duo of starters, twenty four year old right hander Wayne Alexander, and thirty six year old “lefty” William Larsen. They also being in Charles Dupont, one of the better old catchers of the non-League loops who we expect should acquit himself well enough in the second level. More traditional contenders for promotion include Notts County Magpies and Manchester City Citizens, who’ve themselves strengthened quite nicely with young performers such as starter Fred Armstrong, signed from the open market, and second baseman Nick Sinclair, a trade acquisition after nine seasons up in Grimsby.

The trepidation resides mainly in Darwen and Derbyshire these days, the latest clubs who’ve fallen into a state of some disrepair. After having played for eight seasons in the original League and then in its First Division, with some success, it seems the Salmoners engaged in a bit of hubris by first raising their gate price up to 8d., the highest in the top flight, but then accompanied that with a floundering within the table, dropping to 7th in 1893, then 8th, then 9th, then plummeting to 16th and last position in 1896, getting drummed down to the lower level in the test series with Newcastle United after the season. Beyond merely their still decreasing performance, the Darwens have also been repaid by their followers essentially by losing them, as their gate has dropped to the worst in the entire League by far. We are not sure how much longer League baseball can survive in Darwen, but if we were to bet on it, we would have to bet on “not long at all”.

As for the Rams, O, how the mighty have indeed fallen! The erstwhile Baseball Cup champions’ high-priced squad have performed miserably the past several seasons, leading them to exercise a trade of their national hero, Vivian “Mad Dash” Sharp, to the Seasiders of Blackpool at the end of the ’96 season. They have also wasted the talents and efforts of starter Brendan Phillips, second baseman Theophilus Hurley and third baseman Joshua Reeve over the years. It’s difficult to see how Derby County view themselves as a club with a baseball future, and we might well be seeing the end of the Rams in the League before long as well.

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Baseball League 1897: Clubs

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Baseball League 1897: Club Locations


First Division





Second Division

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Baseball League 1897 Top Prospects

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British-Born American Baseballer Returns Home

One very interesting story we will be following this year will be that of Marty Hogan, a twenty seven year old British baseballer who learnt the game in America, and who plays well enough to have toiled in the National League, the most advanced of all baseball leagues in the United States.

Hogan is a native of the market town of Wednesbury, just outside of Walsall. His parents moved him as a child to Young’s Town, in the state of Ohio, where he learnt the game and became quite proficient at it. He is a left fieldsman who played for the Reds of Cincinnati and the Browns of St. Louis, where he compiled a hits average of .241 across 40 games in 1894 and 1895. Although he made it to the top flight, Hogan met his match there, and he left the National League before 1895’s end.

In the lower leagues of America, however, Hogan showed himself to be quite good, hitting .343 in over one thousand at bats across four different leagues. He had a particularly good season with the Hoosiers of Indiana last year, hitting .324 with eighteen twos, twelve threes, nine home runs and seventy-three stolen bases in one hundred and ten games. Hogan also played four games in Grand Rapids, in the state of Michigan, last month before deciding to take the offer of Stoke Ramblers chairman William Patton to come back to Britain to ply his stock and trade among his fellow countrymen starting this season.

We are anxious to see how a baseballer who has played at the highest levels in America fares here at the highest levels of England. This will be a clear test of the plane which the Baseball League occupies in the baseball world. The more that League pitchers can contain Hogan to little better than replicating his National League performance versus his superior lower league performance, the more we can be confident that our Baseball League might take its rightful place among the best leagues in the world.

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Originally Posted by chucksabr

The sample of uniforms for all clubs in the League are found under Game Setup/Functions (bottom)/Create logo & picture preview.

The team photos themselves can be done through Team Menu/[choose team]/Edit Colors & Uniforms (lower right)/Create team picture (bottom). They include only those team members you have pictures of.

Where is Game Setup/Functions (bottom)/Create logo?

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Originally Posted by fromtheline

Where is Game Setup/Functions (bottom)/Create logo?

Go to your League's Setup page, look toward the bottom right hand side and find the Functions buttons, then select that and from the pop-up menu choose Create Logo.