The (English) Baseball League (est. 1888): A History

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Baseball League 1903
First Division Top Systems

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Baseball League 1903
First Division Financial Report

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Top First Division Batting Marks Continue to Fall

It seems as though after every season we find we have been treated to yet another broken record when it comes to offence in the First Division of the Baseball League. Nineteen hundred and three was no different.

This season saw yet another record set for home runs by Alistair Bolton. He slugged thirty eight of them this year, which smashed the previous top tier record of twenty nine set by, of course, Alistair Bolton. Mr Bolton is clearly a specimen unto himself. He has hit twenty home runs or more every season from 1899, and has to his credit an impossibly high 170 home runs through his career.

Charles Doyle, the Burton United third baseman, is second in career homers, with 107, but he is thirty seven years of age, accumulated those over fifteen seasons, and is obviously coming to the end of his career. Bolton is 29 years old and have got his home runs over a mere nine seasons. It is not far-fetched to surmise that Bolton will end up with not only more then 300 home runs, but perhaps more than 400, if he can maintain his herculean pace of thirty home runs per season.

No similar power performance is taking place anywhere else on Earth, not even in America, where the most home runs hit in a career has been 138 by one Roger Connor across eighteen seasons, and the most hit in a recent season is 25, albeit in 155 matches, by a fellow with the delightfully American moniker of Buck Freeman. This realisation boggles the mind, and it is not hyperbolic to categorically state that Alistair Bolton is a power batsman nonpareil, occupying all alone a stratosphere of his own making.

Nearly as amazing has been the progression of the hits average record, in that it is a skill not owned by one man alone. The first baseballer to bat for a .400 average was Frank Woodward, the superannuated catcher who streaked across the British baseball sky for three years before settling in to several years mired in middle aged mediocrity. Mr Woodward debuted to a .407 average in 1894 with Blackburn. Brandon Bradley of Villa also batted .400 that season. They’ve been followed by Jay Jones and William Clark (each .405 in 1896), Charles Stanford and Frank Hodder (each .401 in 1898), Harrison Whittington (an astounding .417 in 1901), and William Shand (.401 in 1902).

This year, the redoubtable Mr Shand became the first repeat .400 batter with his incredible .423 effort for Small Heath in Birmingham. Renowned for his ability to “put the bat on the ball”— he struck out only seven times the entire season— Shand is the rare catcher who can help teams win on both sides of the baseball. The shame of it all is that he is also thirty seven years old, thus finding his ability too late in life for us to enjoy it much longer.

We look forward with anticipation to the surprises the 1904 might deliver when it comes to amazing performances. We have not been disappointed thus far.

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Results

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Promoted Club

Fulham Cottagers

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Promoted Club

Walsall Swifts

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Final Table

Four non-league club challenged the four clubs needing to seek re-election to the Second Division in the vote for League membership. Voting (number of votes):

33      Wolverhampton Wanderers    Re-elected to the League
27	Tottenham Hotspur          Elected to the League
21	Everton                    Re-elected to the League
12	Manchester City            Re-elected to the League
11      South Shields              Not elected to the League
7       Hull City                  Not elected to the League
7       Huddersfield Town          Not elected to the League
0       Woolwich Arsenal           Not re-elected to the League

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Award Winners


Baseballer of the Year and Batsman of the Year: Bradley Betts




Pitcher of the Year: William May




Newcomer of the Year: Richard Williams

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division League Leaders

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Top Systems

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Baseball League 1903
Second Division Financial Report

[Nugget699]

I knew West Ham deserved to be in the league after that performance!

How did you change the dollar sign into the pound sign?

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Jones Retires

Jay Jones, one of the all time greats of the Baseball League, has announced his retirement.

Jones spent his entire 16-year career with the Bolton Wanderers, anchoring their outfield from centre field. Jones played 1,184 games, all but one of them in centre, and finished his career with some of the best offensive numbers in League history. He finishes ninth in career hits average with .349; fifth in runs scored (935); third in hits (1,702); eighth in slugging average (.508); third in twos (273); fourth in home runs (94); first in RBI (933); ninth in stolen bases (482); and third in total bases (2,473).

Jones also had several league leading seasons. He led the League in 1888, its very first year of existence, in hits and did so again in 1891. He led the League in a few other categories as well: total bases twice, home runs twice, RBI once, and slugging once. Jones’s best year was 1896, when he became only the third batsman in League history to bat over .400. That season he batted .405, led the league in home runs with 14, drove in 85 and stole 37 bases while striking out a paltry seven times. Although Jones had somewhat of a reputation for lackadaisicalness, he was also known for his endurance, starting every game for the Wanderers for five straight seasons from 1895 to 1899.

Jones was also considered one of the finest fielding centre fielders in League history, achieving a fielding percentage of .950 with 3,486 putouts and 133 assists in over 10,500 innings.

Jones was only 36 years old when he retired after he suffered a career-ending skull fracture in a baserunning collision during a game with Burslem Port Vale on the 25th of May.

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1904 Baseball Season Starting To-Day

The promise of spring brings with it the optimism of warm weather, sunny skies and lazy days spent enjoying traditional pastimes. One of those pastimes is baseball.

The sport is referred to as the “national pastime” in America. Here in Britain, baseball may never rise to that level since the association football and rugby union games still reign supreme. But baseball has come closer to that level through the years, and even if it does not supplant football as the favoured game of Britons, it may at least claim that mantle for itself during the months of May through September.

Nineteen hundred and four will commence the seventeenth season of League baseball, and the game has become much more popular in recent years. Last season saw nearly five million patrons in total pass through the gate—4,989,623, to be exact, and this is nearly seventeen per cent more than in 1902, which itself was ten per cent more than the roughly 3,850,000 who attended in 1901. These are indeed impressive figures, made even more impressive by the fact that the teams of the Baseball League collectively drew more supporters through their gates than those of the American and National Leagues of the United States, combined!

Consider the case of the Magpies of Newcastle United. For fifty one matches played in 1903, they drew a total gate of 233,088. Compared to baseball gate figures obtained from America, this figure is seen to be higher than that of no fewer than seven teams in the American major leagues, who play almost twenty more matches in their grounds!

It would be premature to say that British baseball is the equivalent of American baseball, especially in consideration of quality of play. But taken as a spectacle, there is no denying that League ball is every bit as popular here as American major league baseball is abroad.

The consistency in champion quality is certainly one reason for this gate success. United seek their fourth Cup in six seasons starting to-day, and Burslem Port Vale, Blackburn, Sunderland and the newly promoted Fulham club all seek headway toward the top of the table themselves. On the second level, the quality teams appear to be West Ham United, Crewe Alexandra and the recently demoted Doncaster and Sheffield Wednesday clubs, with new League side Tottenham Hotspur aiming to make hay while the League sun is shining on their ground.

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Baseball League 1904: Clubs

<<<<< All updated uniforms courtesy of forum member No Pepper >>>>>

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Baseball League 1904: Club Locations


First Division



Second Division

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Another American Professional Signed For League

In 1897, Marty Hogan signed on with Stoke Ramblers to play professional baseball after three seasons plus a few extra matches played in the American professional leagues. Though his form was unremarkable across the sea, he has performed marvellously in seven seasons here, and continues to do so to this day.

The Middlesbrough will attempt to replicate that success after having signed Edward Walker for the 1904 season. Walker is English, a native of Cambois, a tiny town about fifty miles north of Middlesbrough. He is a hulking giant of a man as well, standing six feet five inches in height and weighing no less than seventeen stone. In possession of a stern countenance to boot, Walker will without a doubt be a presence on the mound that will intimidate the mostly smaller opponents of even the First Division.

Walker started four games for the Cleveland club in the American League, winning none while losing two. He is expected to start the second game of the 1904 season for Boro Tuesday next.