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The Start of the Baseball Season.

The Baseball League season starts again to-morrow, which matches being played by all 88 clubs of the League at 44 different grounds, all commencing at precisely two o’clock in the afternoon and this beginning the long 126-game trek that will end in one club hoisting the EOI Cup, four clubs moving up to the next competition, and four more dropping down a level, notwithstanding the result of election among the worst of the bad.

There have been few notable changes in the personnel of the various teams. Bad times and decreased revenues at the gates have prevented most of the teams from making large outlays for the transfer of famous players, as well as of the bright young talents coming to the League for their first time and vying for spots on the better teams. Still the prospects may be studied from another point of view. The effect of the acquisition of a number of great players cannot be noticed straight away. They take some time to settle down in their new surroundings and fit in together as a compact and unified whole. That consideration may lead to great expectations of Manchester United. Last season a combination of mishaps, and absences for reasons other than injury, together with a long uncertainty as to choice of the best side in any given match, made the team quite ineffective at times and led to their worst showing of ninth place since the year following the war. With a clear, straight run free of all misadventure or trouble United may well become one of the great sides of the year, though it may be necessary to introduce more of the vigour of youth in some places, which they are attempting to do with the signing of young catcher Freddy Young. A lumbering young behemoth of six feet three inches and 16 stone, he won’t be able to sneak up on anyone from behind, or perhaps even to swipe a single base, but he can crush a baseball with alarming force and should evolve into one of the better home run hitters in the league during the next decade.

The new clubs in the First Division are the Clapton Orient and Sheffield Wednesday. Both had long stretches of residency in the First Division many years ago, and both have also suffered a long stretch on the second level as well. This is Orient’s first year back in the top tier since 1919 ; the Wednesday have been on the outs since 1903. Each will be trying to make their case for inclusion in the Championship competition for many years to come. Orient’s great MacAlpine, who is the greatest player in the history of the Second Division, will make his return to the top for the first time since his maiden season and will attempt to prove that he rates mention among the all time greats. McLaughlin, the young O's centre fielder, will try to “make his bones” among the elite, but all eyes will be trained on the nineteen-year-old Davies, the reigning Pitcher/Newcomer/Baseballer of the Year, trying to repeat his feats against the monsters of the First Division.

Among the First Division clubs, besides the aforementioned United of Manchester, the EOI Cup holders Sunderland and champions Crewe Alexandra will make things interesting, as usual, and we expect Walsall, Fulham, Port Vale and Everton to be among the contenders for the Cup series. In the Second Division, to which the Gateshead and the Newcastle United clubs fell, the best clubs appear to be: Gillingham, Stockport County, Coventry City and Sheffield United. Middlesbrough, who pummelled the Northern Section of the Third Division last season, may have enough to surprise the other clubs and sneak into the promotion zone.

In the Third Division, the relegated Birmingham club may be among the leaders of the Southern Section and seek a truncated stay, although they will have to battle good Northampton, Crystal Palace, Bristol City and Merthyr Town clubs for the lone promotion spot. In the Northern Section, any of eleven clubs could be considered favourites to go up, but the punters best like Stoke City and Leeds United to emerge from among that logjam.

Thames, a club of a few years’ standing, with a splendid ground at Customs House capable of holding 25,000 spectators, come into the Southern Section by election. The election of Thames makes 12 London clubs in the Baseball League. Fulham, West Ham United and Clapton Orient should do well in the first rank ; Chelsea, Charlton Athletic and Watford need to show improvement on last season’s form in the Second Division, while in the third class all the London clubs should be in the running for prominent places, with hope even for the Arsenal.

The League is making a big wave with the players and their union with a unilateral decrease in wages, which in their defence has a solid business purpose. With lower gates come the need to control expenses, and wages can not rise unabated while clubs risk winding up for the inability to pay players. The union is squawking, of course, but it simply can not be helped. Attendances have fallen by nearly half in the past few years, and many clubs announced that ticket prices will be reduced for the first time in many years, in an attempt to keep any people coming to watch the games at all. In an era during which men are losing their livelihoods hither and yon throughout the kingdom, we can scarcely be expected to cry real tears for well-paid baseballers’ inability to maintain their high levels of remuneration unimpeded by the situation swirling about them. The baseballers will be fine in the end, and if they do not like their state of affairs, they are invited to seek work in hot and dirty environs instead … if they can find any.