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1895 Campaign Opens With High Expectations, Surprising Moves

Sunderland Look Strong in Bid to Become First ex-Alliance Champ Versus Blackburn, Villa

Newcastle United Make Dramatic Moves Toward Youth in Effort For League Return

As the dawn of the baseball season for the Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Ninety Five breaks, there is a palpable anticipation in the air that this could be the year in which one of the ex-Alliance teams break through and make their way to the top of the top level of the League, for the first time in its young tenure. The thinking goes, it has to happen eventually, so why not now?

And the baseball team of the Sunderland club have the talent and the wherewithal to make that happen. They have, arguably, the best player in British baseball in William Clark, the twenty eight year old rightfielder who may have finally supplanted the ageing Ram, Vivian Mad Dash Sharp, in that regard. He has batted .390 and .375 whilst clobbering at least twenty threes, five home runs and forty seven stolen bases in each season, and there’s no reason to believe he cannot do this again. Clark will look to continue his progress of improvement. Sunderland also boast two top starting pitchers in William Tuner (thirteen wins, 2.62 earned runs per nine average) and Enoch Atherton (fifteen wins, 2.93), the former at the prime of his powers and the latter trying to forestall Father Time to turn in a season worthy of the best of his peak.

Blackburn return almost their entire team in defending their two consecutive First Division crowns. The surprising elderly newcomer, Frank Woodward, is a thirty eight year old catcher who stunned the League last year by leading all batsmen with a .407 hits average, and who will be leading the charge this year alongside his equally elderly comrade, first baseman Richard Jarvis, and young rightfielder William Simmonds, who sprang into his own unexpectedly in ’93 along with the lengthened pitching lane. Their goal will be to bludgeon their opponents to death, as they did with 704 blows to the plate last year, whilst their three twenty game winning starting trio of Ernest King, Edmund Parker and Augustus Prowne lead a staff that look to match last year’s lowest runs allowed performance.

The early favourites in the Second Division are the Sheffield United club, who've a quite mature squad with fifteen of their nineteen active players having exceeded their thirtieth birthdays, but who also have the talent of a younger team with the maturity of shared baseball experience to wield in their quest. The Imps of Lincoln City also look very strong, as they seek to become the first former Midland League club to make the top level grade at the end of this year. Do not forget the Burslem Port Vale or Burton Swifts clubs, either. They too will make a spirited run for the top flight.

Down in the hinterlands of non-League baseball, the interesting story to follow is that of Newcastle United. Led by a new administration of executives in the front office, they have gutted key spots on their squad that were manned by barely living creatures and replaced them with a full onslaught of youthful potential. Everyone in the sport who have reviewed their moves agree that they have made a significant investment in the future that should pay off much better than the alleged moves made by the previous regime. The five key signings include Peter Howarth, rightfielder aged twenty three; Charles Wright, first baseman aged twenty two; Jesse Morgan, pitcher aged twenty; Edward James, pitcher aged nineteen, and Richard Vaughan, catcher aged eightenn. All will be playing on the active squad, and all will be expected to contribute mightily to the club’s return to League baseball in short order.

The biggest change this year is the extension of the Squads from eighteen players to nineteen for League clubs, agreed upon during the winter by a narrow majority of votes among the League chairmen and board. The move was made in recognition of the fact that many pitchers have been injured in the past couple of years due to the strain of having to pitch games after having rested only two days since their prior starts during the same work week. Not all clubs approved of the move, nor are they happy at its passage, given that this will create the expectation that they will be bound to carry an extra player to whom they will have to pay an active squad wage. Nevertheless, it is this writer’s opinion that this move will result in healthier pitchers and longer careers overall, and the consensus opinion concurs with this.