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

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Baseball League 1895
Second Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1895
Second Division League Leaders

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Baseball League 1895
Second Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1895
Second Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1895
Second Division Financial Report

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The 1895 Season Almanac For The Baseball League is Now Available

http://goo.gl/LPpC7E

The almanac for the Baseball League 1895 season can be acquired here, to be perused at your leisure. (WinRAR required to unzip the almanac.)

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Valiants Chairman Furious At “Political”
Non-Reëlection to League

Vows Return Despite “Opposition” by “Metropolitan Elites”

Sir Charles Hall, the benefactor of the baseball club of Burslem Port Vale, is widely said to be furious with the circumstances leading to the demotion by non-reëlection of his club out of the Second Division of the Baseball League. The Valiants have been exiled to the Lancashire League, which they themselves reluctantly chose to go to as opposed to the more proximal Midland League, who have been struggling for survival as a top non-League loop.

The Valiants of Burslem Port Vale had been a member in good standing of the Baseball League since 1892, when they were among twelve baseball clubs absorbed into the League from the erstwhile Baseball Alliance, who themselves failed to establish sufficiently as a top tier league the equal of the original League.

The crux of the problem, as Sir Charles is said to see it, is that the Valiants were exiled despite being one of the more solvent clubs in the entire League. The numbers certainly seem to bear this out. BPV have been one of the top draws in the Second Division since they joined. This past year they were fourth in overall attendance with over 134,000 tickets sold. The previous season they were second with nearly 119,000, and two years prior fourth with 127,500.

The Valiants record on the pitch was not among the worst, either. Their pitch performance was situated in a cluster of nine clubs, over half the Division, who all fell within two matches of one another by the end of proceedings. Two clubs who fell below them on the table, the Shakers of Bury and the Gunners of Woolwich Arsenal, escaped similar exile unscathed. This state of affairs especially rankles Sir Charles since the gate of the aforementioned rival clubs was far worse than that of the Valiants. The Gunners’ attendance was less than half that of BPV, for example.

Quite straight, Sir Charles believes that the “politics” practised by League administration “metropolitan elites” dictated that similarly placed clubs in Bury, London and Liverpool be absolved of their poor performances on the pitch and at the gate and maintain their positions in the League. Sir Charles is said to have been told that the League must maintain a club in the great metropolis of London to establish a foothold in the south of the Island and bring baseball to a prominence on a par with association football, cricket and horse racing there.

The same applies to Liverpool, a city of size second only to London with over half a million inhabitants, but which is struggling as a baseball city given a similarly dismal showing by the Everton Blues of the top flight as well. (It should be noted that while the Blues drew fewer than 100,000 fans to Anfield the entire season, they added another 58,000 or so during the four game home portion of the after-season test series, a benefit of playing in the League’s largest grounds. The Liverpool club are also playing at Anfield.) Success in this seaport is seen as crucial to the future of the Baseball League as a thriving concern.

As for Bury, since chairman Ebenezer Bell himself sit on the League board, it was highly unlikely the Shakers were ever in serious consideration for non-reëlection.

To add final insult to injury, the Valiants will be taking the Division’s batting leader of 1895 with them to the Lancashire loop in the person of Charles Stanford, author of one twenty base hits and a .370 hits average, and who should be expected to bat something on the order of .500 in a league of inferior hurlers during the 1896 season.

The determination Sir Charles Hall has for returning to the League will likely be rewarded once the League inevitably extend the divisions to include more clubs, as has been the talk for the past year, although not something that is currently in the process of occurring. In the meantime, the fury of a chairman scorned should be something to behold for the next year or so.

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1895 News & Notes

The Divisions' respective offensive figures continued to take divergent paths in 1895 versus 1894. In the First Division, run scoring was up +3.1% once again, helped along by a substantial increase in doubles (+3.4%) and especially triples (+11.6%), although homers stayed fairly flat (-0.8%). Stolen bases (+11.5%) and SB attempts (+7.2%) also leapt. Walks bumped up slightly (+1.7%), and strikeouts more so (+4.7%). Pitchers went to take the inside of the plate away from hitters as HBP shot up (+17.1%). Despite all this substantial change in activity, batting average went up only a point, OBP by three points, and slugging by seven points (.283/.362/.388), all changing by less than 2%. On the other side of the ball, we saw shutouts plummet, naturally, from 41 to 30, and balks increased from 30 to 39.

On the flip side, Second Division scoring plummeted by -4.8%, led by sharp drops in triples (-6.2%) and home runs (-4.3%). Stolen bases and attempts were both way down (-11.6% and -9.2% respectively), while walks and strikeouts both crept up by +2.2% each. Hit batters also shot up by +18.3%.

Some major records set at the top level this year includes most home runs in a season, 15, by Alan Allan of Stoke Ramblers; triples, 35, by Sydney Holdsworth of West Bromwich Albion Hawthorns; OBP, .563, Vivian Clark of Derby County Rams; SLG, .622, William Clark of Sunderland Black Cats; stolen bases, 72, Frederick Elliott of The Wednesday Owls (who also dubiously claimed the caught stealing record of 56); walks, 118, Gerald Pemberton also of The Wednesday; and single-season WAR, 8.1, by Clark. The two notable pitching records, counter-intuitively set during the Division’s offensive apex, are batting average against (.194) and low H/9 (6.44), both by Frederick Spence of Stoke. Key single game marks set or tied include hits in a game, six, tied by Holdsworth on 30th May against Bolton Wanderers; runs scored, six, set by the Black Cats’ Clark and Jesse Robinson on the same play against Derby County in a 31-2 shellacking on 1st July; and stolen bases in a game, five, tied by Pemberton on 29th July against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Charles Parker of Blackburn Rovers against Derby County on 13th July.

In the Second Division, Frederick McFarlane of Liverpool Reds broke his own one year old season record for triples by slugging 38; and Maurice Logan of Sheffield United set records both for SLG (.586) and total bases (205). Interestingly, there were no pitching records set. There were no significant single game records in D2 in 1895.

It should be noted by since the typical rotation in both Divisions went from three to four for the 1895 season, there were neither any 20-game winners nor losers. Top win total for D1 was 16 (Charles Cashmore, Nottingham Forest Foresters; and Mark Parry, Newton Heath Red Devils), and for D2, Harold Page of Burton Wanderers logged 17 wins.

D1 club records include Small Heath Blues tying the team batting average mark with .316; two clubs hit over 100 triples for the first time (Notts County Magpies, West Bromwich Albion); three clubs broke the 500 barrier for walk drawn (Aston Villa, Derby County, Nottingham Forest); and Bolton Wanderers set a club records for steals (229). No notable pitching records were set. In D2, Burton Wanderers set a division record for wins with 61; Grimsby Town Mariners set the batting average mark with .292; and Burton Wanderers pitchers proved to be the stingiest with the ball by giving up only 7.32 hits/9.

It was a banner year at the gate in both Divisions as two D1 clubs became the first to draw over 200,000 fans (Aston Villa Villans, Blackburn Rovers, which Sunderland falling just short at 198,725), and two others in D2 were the first to draw over 150,000 (Burton Wanderers, Crewe Alexandra Railwaymen).

On 6th September, Noah Walmsley of the First Division’s Darwen Salmoners twirled a no-hitter against The Wednesday and defeated them 5-0 at Sheffield in front of a crowd of 3,404. Walmsley dispatched the Owls on 123 pitches, walking two and striking out three, helping his own cause with a run-scoring single in the second inning.

In D1, William Rees of Small Heath set a record 34-game hitting streak which was snapped on 7th August against Blackburn. Four different players hit for the cycle, including Charley Black of Bolton Wanderers twice in four days, first against Derby County and then against Burnley Clarets. William Clark and Christopher Walker of Wolverhampton Wanderers also clicked on a cycle. The longest hitting streak in D2 history was also set, at 28 games, by Danny Thompson of Lincoln City Imps, snapped at home on 18th June by Grimsby Town.

Here in the eighth season of the First Division (née Baseball League), Richard Jarvis (Blackburn Rovers) and Charley Black both scored their 500th career run in 1895. Jarvis and Fred Grant (Notts County) both clubbed their 100th career triple. William Clark stole his 300th career base. Pitchers getting their 100th win this year include William Kent of Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Ahearn McLachlan of Burnley Clarets.

Retiring players of note include Charles Healey of Notts County, who sported an 82-59 record with a sparkling 2.67 ERA in eight seasons, and Tom Beal of Wolverhampton, who hit .255/.361/.360 in 479 games across eight seasons for the Wolves. In the Second Division, Danny Murphy of Crewe Alexandra is hanging them up after six years, three of them in the baseball Alliance, where he won 20 games in 1891. Murphy finishes with a 67-59 record and a 3.51 in 132 starts for the Railwaymen.

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Huzzah! Opening Day 1896 is Here!

New Teams, New Grounds, New Stories Abound

Late May is alight on the calendar, the birds have returned, the flora and fauna are in bloom, and football is finally over and done with. That can mean only that the splendour that is the Baseball League season is about to commence!

The players are ready to take to the pitch, the umpires ready to enforce the rules and good sportsmanship, and the fans ready to take in a baseball match in the warm spring and warmer still summer air. It is an experience that is nothing short of magnificent, a true harbinger of the green and glorious English summer that has recently and wonderfully cloaked itself in the tradition of the grandest game in the world.

The contestants for the top crown this year include who we believe may be the return of an old favourite in the Burnley club. Led by the bats of second baseman Billy Price and catcher William Simms, and topped in the rotation by the golden arm of Ahearn McLachlan, a return to title glory cannot be ruled out at all for the Clarets. The incumbent Black Cats of Sunderland and their brightest leading light William Clark, perhaps the best player in the British game to-day, will surely have something to say about that, while the most dominant pitcher in perhaps the world, the incomparable Edmund Parker, will look to lead his Rovers of Blackburn back to the top of the table as well. It is our opinion that the Hawthorns of West Bromwich Albion are also ready to crack this triumvirate of top talent, and will try to do so whilst led both by the young-ling (the twenty five year old Sydney Holdsworth), and by the ancient (forty two year old pitcher Septimus Bevan).

In the lesser division, there are several intriguing stories to keep the keen baseball mind engaged during the course of the season. Paramount among these is the return to the League of the Magpies of Newcastle United, exiled temporarily to the Midlands because poor management had predictably yielded poor results. Since then, the front office has been disinfected of the poison of the prior administration, and a clean fresh new administration has brought on some of the most impressive baseball talent Britain has to offer, spanning the breadth of the entire Island, in a bid to make a strong enough showing to test for promotion in September. Also strengthening themselves dramatically were the Lilywhites of Preston North End, who were run out of the top flight after the first season of divisional ball and are keen to return so their top young stars Charles Smith and Richard Joseph can bask in the limelight. Keep your eye on the Holy Blues of Gainsborough Trinity, who are the first club to have been elected up from the Lancashire League and who are eager to acquit themselves well in the Baseball League of 1896. If they do well enough, it is certain their former league mates will get the call if … when … the League extends.

Joining Trinity in the Second Division this year are the Seasiders of Blackpool, who bring a solidly competent side from the waning Midland League, who are quickly becoming a repository of discredited former Baseball League clubs and non-serious other sides, and who all seem certain to be relegated en masse to the back pages of the annals of baseball history before long.

As the game itself continues to spread quickly around the Island, and as top League ball matures and establishes itself as an ingrained institution, several member clubs are taking steps to ensconce their permanence into the landscape. Chief among those steps is the construction of new and permanent stadia in which they can comfortably seat more spectators than could have continued to have been fit onto the flat and seatless football grounds borrowed when that game is out of season. This winter alone, modern new stadia seating 5,000 patrons and more were built by the clubs in Derby County (Baseball Ground), Bolton (Burnden Park), Lincoln City (Sincil Bank), and Walsall (Hillary Street Ground). It is a very good sign of strong motion towards success that the chairmen of these clubs see fit to make such investments in the future of the sport of baseball in England. This gives us great hope that professional baseball will be an annual feature of the remaining summers we have left in all our lives, including the lives of those future baseball loyalists presently being pushed around in prams on the streets of English villages, towns and cities.

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Baseball League 1896: Clubs

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Baseball League 1896: Club Locations

First Division

(Hidden: West Bromwich Albion, under Small Heath)




Second Division

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Baseball League 1896 Top Prospects

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Contract Trades Take Off in League

It appears that the Baseball League are rushing headlong to follow American baseball's example of trading player contracts, rather than the Football League's preferred method of exchange, the transfer of player registrations, which itself began just a few years ago with the famous £100 "poaching" of Willie Groves of Albion by Villa.

Rather than the act of one club paying another for the rights to obtain the player in question, thus terminating his contract with the old club and opening negotiations for a fresh contract with the new, the player trade simply exchanges responsibility for the contracts of the players in question from one team to another, sometimes involving multiple players for one, or perhaps even cash, depending on which needs a team has to fill, and the change of registration comes automatically with the trade act.

This method of player exchange has its roots in the National League of America, where player contracts have been traded between teams fairly frequently over the past decade at least, and even though the method of exchange is the remarkable point, it is also the frequency that the British baseball clubs appear to wish to emulate.

Let it be known that the first player trade in British baseball history took place on the very American date of 4th of July, when the Blues of Small Heath offered reserves Augustus Bell (centre field) and Frank Trueman (pitcher) to the Burton Wanderers for the contract of Ernest Beedles, a first basemen whom the Burtons must have thought would elevate them above the 41% win rate they'd eventually end up at, else they'd likely not have made the trade at all. Nevertheless, although the success of the trade can and should be debated, it also served to open a floodgates of similar moves by other clubs, who among them initiated no fewer than nineteen additional contract trades before the end of the year, including two earlier to-day.

The two most shocking trades involved long time favourites of the British public, the more astonishing of which included Vivian "Mad Dash" Sharp, whom Derby County saw fit to ship as though a simple pallet of goods to their now Second Division rival Blackpool, late of the Lancashire League and thus who could use the services of a legend such as Mr. Sharp to establish their viability as a major club. Blackpool packaged off three young players in return, on whom the Rams hope to build their team of to-morrow. Also switching clubs, earlier to-day in fact, is the venerable Gearróc McNurr, the superannuated hurler late of Albion's baseball side, who can now play out his days in the lower level as well as the property of the Magpies of Notts County.

As sudden a development as this all has been, it should be expected to be the norm, unless the League put their clamp on it, and there is no early indication that they are inclined as such.

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Results

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Champions

Blackburn Rovers

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Baseball League 1896
First 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.

Derby County Rams and Darwen Salmoners are relegated to the Second Division for 1896.

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1896
First Division League Leaders

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1896
First Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers