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Great Baseballers’ Great Sacrifice.

The War has now ended and we are left to mourn our dead, mend our lives and return to the mundane normality that characterises our everyday existence. This entails both labour and leisure, and baseball encompasses both, as the professional game prepares to make its return in the spring. Supporters will be thrilled to welcome back the game they have sorely missed, but they will also carry hearts heavy with grief over the loss of ninety five baseballers, including some of the greatest players, young and old, the game has ever known, or will never have the opportunity to fully appreciate.


The loss of William Beveridge is one such example. For fourteen seasons Beveridge was a mainstay of the Liverpool club, excelling at the bat, on the bases and in the field. He led his division in hits four tines, stolen bases and runs scored once each, and finished among the top five batsmen in batting average nine times, including five of his last six seasons. When the League Championship was suspended for war, Beveridge’s First Division batting average of .364 ranked third among all careers, and his 552 stolen bases placed him sixth in First Division history. He won three Fieldsman of the Year awards, at second base and short stop; was First Division Baseballer of the Year in 1913; and won five EOI Cups with Reds. Beveridge was killed in action on September 14, 1916, in the seventh battle of the Isonzo at Gorizia in Italy. He was aged 34 years.

Another great long time baseballer killed in action was pitcher Frederic Finn, also of the Liverpool club. Finn joined Reds in 1897 when they were a struggling second division side, and he was instrumental in lifting them into the top flight for good from the 1903 season and shaping the team into a perennial EOI Cup finalist. Finn won 277 matches for Reds, which is the sixth most among Baseball League careers, and his 2.50 career earned runs average is among the very best as well. Finn earned twenty victories in a season twice, leading the top flight in one of those instances, in 1911, for which he won the Pitcher of the Year award. Finn also earned a Fieldsman of the Year award in 1910, and almost needless to say, he also counted among his spoils five EOI Cups. Finn was killed in action on May 18, 1917, in the tenth battle of the Isonzo in Italy. He was aged 40 years.

Cyril Buff joined the Chesterfield Town club as a pitcher straight from the University of Leeds in 1912 and was the winner of fifteen to help lead Spireites to the top flight for 1913. After a lacklustre season of 16 victories against 14 defeats that year, Buff set himself right in 1914 and won 21 against a mere seven losses to lead the division, and placed second in voting for Pitcher of the Year. He was also proficient at striking out opposing batsmen, as he was second among top tier pitchers both in 1913 with 192, and in his final season of 1914 with 186. His pitches, especially his fast ball, were well known and feared for their exceptional movement, and he was widely considered to have a very bright future ahead of him. Buff died on January 12, 1918 from wounds suffered during the Battle of Cambrai in France. He was aged 28 years.

One of the most excellent young players lost to the War was Louis Ashworth. Ashworth was a third baseman for the Glossop club, having been converted from the outfield after his newcomer season of 1909. He was a baseball prodigy from Gosport, Hampshire and a League starter at age eighteen. He quickly became a feared collector of threes, hitting 29 in 1910 and 25 in 1912, among the highest in his division. He helped lead his club into the First Division from the 1912 season and led his loop in base hits with 181 in the final year of 1914 just before the championship suspension took effect. In his final season he batted .377 which was second among all First Division players, putting on full display his potential to become one of the best batsmen of all time in the British game. Ashworth was killed in a mine explosion on April 19, 1915 in France, a date which, regrettably, was his twenty fourth birthday.