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The 1899 Baseball Season Starts To-day

Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley Expected to be Strong Again

With the warm, gentle winds of May also blows the beginning of yet another baseball season, the twelfth annual episode in the saga of the Baseball League. Though League baseball matches sputtered at the gate somewhat last year, the performances of the players themselves seem to improve with time. As the game is played more throughout Britain, the players become more proficient, the pitching sharper, the batting more powerful, the fielding surer handed. Mistakes are becoming fewer and farther between. The games are becoming crisper. All in all, English professional baseball is becoming a more enjoyable experience.

The business climate is still struggling, but with signs of spring comes signs of hope of improvement in that area as well, with more employment, and more spectators to support this grand game.

In the First Division, we still see Bolton remaining strong, and anticipate a return to form of the Blackburn Rovers and Burnley Clarets as well. Burnley especially have a talented young core of players, including fielders Reginald Bass, Charles Dickson and Reuben Allen, and pitchers Harold Gamble and Edward Stewart, all of whom save Dickson are twenty years of age and younger, but all of whom should also see action on the pitch and contribute to a Clarets revival. Sunderland and Notts County are dark horses who are likely to challenge enough to throw a scare into the favourites, if not usurp them entirely by season’s end.

The Second Division favourites include Preston North End, Middlesbrough and Burslem Port Vale all vying for an opportunity to rise to the top flight. A interesting new entrant into the race comes from Bristol, whose City team of Robins constitute the second southern club to play in the League, the hapless Woolwich Arsenal club being the first. Bristol field a strong side led by third baseman William Smith, who has batted .392 in the Lancashire league over six seasons, centre fielder Archibald Hill, who has batted over .400 three times for the Robins, and second baseman William Heaton, a slick fielding second baseman. All are top tier talents, but all are past their prime, and the pitching of the Robins squad is nothing to write home about. Their time is short, and they must make the best of it while they can.