[chucksabr]

The British Game of Baseball.

(From a Special Correspondent.)

The sport of baseball was introduced to Britain by the great Albert Goodwill Spalding almost half a century ago. From that time the game has grown tremendously, and while the baseball being played here looks nearly identical to that practised across the sea, our version has retained something of its unique Britishness. For example, our baseball begins not with the “first inning”, but with the first innings. We do not watch “hitters” or “batters” as American baseball does—we watch batsmen. There are no “fielders” here—only fieldsmen; except that our “centerfielder” is more correctly referred to as the centre fielder; and short stop is properly two words, not hastily slapped together into one as though part of a linguistic efficiency exercise. And although baseballers in Britain do hit singles and home runs off pitchers, rather than one and fours off bowlers, our batsmen typically do not hit “doubles” or “triples”, but rather twos and threes.

Despite such admittedly superficial differences, the game is enjoyed equally well on either side of the pond, a testament to its great popularity on each side. As baseball has taken on the mantle of “national pastime” in the States, the game has somewhat less hubristically become the sport of the summer in Britain as well. (Although, can anything reek of hubris more than the American provincial baseball championship being dubbed the “World’s Series” while not involving any clubs of foreign pedigree in the proceedings?) At least such is true of the North, especially Lancashire, the birthplace of British baseball. For despite herculean efforts by the Baseball League to render the sport a pastime of national proportions in England, there is no denying that the crowds in the North are still larger, the supporters more knowledgeable in matters of form and technical lore, and the “fans” more attuned to the play on the pitch than are the crowds of the South. The League clubs of London have been particularly terrible, with Tottenham Hotspur, the last remaining club in the First Division, in imminent danger of disappearing the City from the top tier altogether once the upcoming season has concluded. One can surmise easily that as long as a strong foothold is not held in the Capital, the sport of baseball is unlikely to fully displace cricket, football, racing or rugby atop the Mountain of British Sport.

And yet, it cannot be disputed that the future of the sport of baseball has never been brighter in this country. The League began with twelve clubs playing sixty six matches only at the weekends in a single table competition during the maiden season of 1888. To-day, thirty-five years on, there are 88 clubs competing in four tables on three levels, playing 126 total matches, with games played six days each and every week for twenty one weeks stretching from May into October, culminating in the EOI Cup challenge contested between the top two clubs of the League after each season's conclusion. Professional baseball has become wildly popular among the increasingly leisured working and professional classes of the country. The best estimates for 1888 are that about one and a half millions were in attendance for all the games played by the League that year; during the 1922 season, a deadly accurate count of 27,147,743 spectators crossed into the various grounds of the Baseball League to take in more than 5,300 League baseball matches played throughout the season, figures which do not even take into account the thousands of non-League professional baseball games throughout the kingdom drawing millions more of supporters to the gate. The progress of the sport in these breathless post-war years has been astounding. Baseballers have been arriving to play in the League not only from the Home Nations, but from across the Commonwealth, lands such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Gold Coast, South Africa, and oh yes, from that prodigal child America herself. There is talk of floodlit games starting at ten o’clock at night, and of matches broadcast to supporters by wireless. The prospects for the sport are, by all accounts, looking quite “up”.

The system of promotion and relegation has its advantage in the British game such that does not exist in America. Regardless of whether a club begins this season buried at the bottom of the Third Division, it is still possible that in two years’ time that same club could be competing for the EOI Cup, the winning of which has become inarguably the highest accomplishment in the British game. This should be of great comfort and hope for the supporters of baseball clubs in Barrow and Halifax; in Wrexham and Wolverhampton; in Portsmouth and Gillingham; in Swindon and Reading. With a few well-placed base hits, leaping one-handed catches, and sterling pitching performances, clubs in these and dozens of other cities and towns large and small may quite possibly experience the thrill of top flight baseball played sixty three times on their home ground very soon. On the other hand, pity the poor American baseball “fanatics” of Baltimore and Hartford; of Buffalo and Indianapolis; of Kansas City and Columbus; of Los Angeles and San Francisco. For no matter how well their favoured clubs play or how many matches in a season the teams win—even if every single one of them—none of that will matter even a whit. For the American major leagues constitute a monopoly that are closed to those cities, and the supporters who live in these and a thousand American other cities and towns—indeed, supporters who live in all but only eleven American cities—understand that in the end, without the opportunity to perform on the biggest stage in the sport, the accomplishments of their teams are, ultimately, meaningless.

The home run has not captured the imagination of the British public in the way it has the apparently easily distractible Americans. While Neanderthal “sluggers” such as Rogers Hornsby, Cy Williams, Tillie Walker and, of course, Babe Ruth hold slack-jawed Americans in thrall to their stupefying exploits, the keenly discerning British fan still roars his approval for the well-placed sacrifice; the surprise bunt base hit; the double base-steal; the putout tag at home plate; and that most exciting of base hits, the legged-out three. Even if it can be fairly argued that the proficiency of baseball talent in Britain still lags behind that of the United States, it cannot be seriously argued that the American game of bludgeoning the opponent to death with home runs is, aesthetically, a competition preferable to that of the comparatively thrilling British game. We know fully well here that there is more to the game of baseball than a twenty-stone behemoth lumbering around the bases at a snail’s pace for a score without liability to be put out practically every time he bats. Perhaps the lords of American baseball will realize such before it is too late, and before their sport is overtaken in popularity and gate receipts by the bastardization of the game of football that prevails in that country.

All in all, the baseball fanatic here at home should be quite pleased with the progress his favourite sport has made within the pantheon of British leisure pursuits. The sport is as healthy as any other in this country which speaks to its ongoing viability and, indeed, growth. The 1923 season is nigh, and the baseball supporter bates his breath in anticipation as the temperatures warm and the leaves sprout onto the trees, signalling that it is time for his return to the hallowed ground of his favourite club.

Play ball!