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Opening and Prospects of the League Season.

Nine Matches in London.

The Baseball League will begin the season to-morrow with a full programme, all the 86 clubs now in membership being engaged. There will be 11 matches in each of the first two divisions and the Southern Section of the Third Division, and 10 in the Northern Section of the Third Division.

Nine of London’s professional clubs will play at home. Tottenham provide the only Championship match in the Capital; there are Second Division matches at Arsenal Stadium, Millfields Road, Craven Cottage and Boleyn Ground; and Third Division matches at Griffin Park, The Nest, The Den, Loftus Road, and The Valley. The Arsenal have the bad luck to draw one of the stronger teams in the rank, that being Notts County.

Outside of London, Walsall, the champions, will appear at White Hart-lane to play against the Tottenham club, thus providing a very severe test for a club seeking advancement toward the top of the table. Last year Walsall began the season with more losses than victories after the first month had elapsed; they played the rest of the season with nary an adverse result and return a similarly strong club for 1921; thus, they are likely to resume in that style rather than again start badly. Jamie Ramsay and Laurence Elcock are still ascendant on the club, and William Stanton still the holder of the Baseballer and Pitcher of the Year trophies. But Manchester United, Swifts’ EOI Cup tie opponents from last season, look equally strong and should be counted upon to fight tooth and nail to wrest the Cup from Walsall town. United are led by the 34 year old Canuck Freddie Hand on the mound, and have the best newcomer in the game in Sam Parsons of Heywood, a small town near to Old Trafford, where they begin the season visited by Bristol City. Crewe will fulfil the role of dark horse, of whom little is expected, yet may steal victory whilst their putative superiors look the other way and concentrate only on one another.

In the lower divisions, all eyes are on Exeter City, handy winners of the Third Division who obtained automatic promotion, and who seek to prove that Southern clubs are, and indeed always have been, the equal of even the better League clubs. Exeter are led by League base hits record setter Aaron Cook. They will challenge top contenders Preston North End, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion and Notts County for a First Division bid for 1922. The better teams in the Third Division appear to be Darlington, Watford, Brighton Hove Albion and Brentford, although truth be told it is difficult to confidently predict how the new League clubs at the lowest level may play once the season begins.

The advance of London clubs.

The number of London clubs in membership is now 11—a wonderful increase in 15 years. The number stood at one at the close of the century; five clubs entered in the first five years afterwards, and now with the advent of the Third Division, five more last year and this. Now Tottenham and Chelsea reside in the First Division; The Arsenal, Clapton Orient, Fulham and West Ham United in the Second; and Brentford, Crystal Palace, Millwall, Queen’s Park Rangers and now Charlton Athletic in the Third Division. That London should possess more than an eighth of the clubs, which, as members of the Baseball League, can claim the description of first-class, is certainly remarkable—a fact that demonstrates what a hold the Midlands-birthed British game as a spectacle has obtained on the sport-loving public of the Metropolis.

That the spirit of adventure enters largely into the running of these clubs comes out in the balance-sheets, as well as in the table of results, and the decision of the championships. Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, so happily placed for the assembly of a big crowd, have never had cause for worry on account of impoverished receipts, but The Arsenal, at their recent general meeting, declared a dividend for the first time in many years, while Queen’s Park Rangers received such substantial support at Loftus Road that last season they paid more in entertainment tax than they used to take in gate money during a whole season when playing in the grounds of Park Royal.

Outside of London, the sudden appearance of the several Welsh clubs deserves special notice. Four sides joined the League with the extension to Division 3 last year, and two more join this year, for a total of six. Never before has Wales had any representation in the League at any level, and the ready success of these clubs leading to their inclusion in league competition comes as a further challenge to the Rugby game, which previously had no opposition as an attraction to players or as an amusement for the public. South Wales, where Welsh baseball interest has been most concentrated, has fresh representation in Aberdare, a club with sufficient enterprise to bring their ground up to League requirement, and to make their qualification good for election to the Third Division.

Elsewhere in the British Game.

The great increase in the popularity of League baseball last season had clearest proof in the want of adequate accommodation for the various crowds. Club officials were rather slow to take the hint given by the rush for this kind of recreation directly the war came to an end, but, during the ensuing winter months, they did, and have been doing, their best to meet the demand. Many other clubs can do nothing more than raise the banking that surrounds the playing field, but new stands have been erected where space was available, and, of course, if means allowed. Addition to capacity was made at Anfield; and in Port Vale, Walsall, Bury and Chesterfield; and additions were made to Southport and Stalybridge this past winter. No fewer than 15 grounds can now boast the ability to hold twenty thousand patrons comfortably, and four other grounds could squeeze in that many on special occasion. Anfield, itself, has become a behemoth of 41,000 seats, unfortunately just in time to witness the descent of the erstwhile six-time champion Liverpool club.

The criticism levelled against teams for the undertaking of trades and transfers of players in apparent contravention to their future chances late in season have given rise to calls for a deadline to be applied to such activities. To date players have been allowed to move about at club discretion freely all year; the application of such a deadline has firm opposition among the strongest clubs, as might be expected, however, such a deadline has been successfully applied in the American majors and has helped maintain a fair competition among the clubs of varying means there.

The quiet move among some clubs last season to place 25 players on their active squads has found its way into the laws of the game this past winter, as squad sizes had never been expressly addressed within. As per to the new rules, while clubs may carry up to 25 players, they may carry fewer if they so choose; however, it is anticipated that with the game having been made flush with cash since the war, it will be easy for most if not all clubs to staff to the maximum allowed by law.