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

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Baseball League 1905
Second Division Financial Report

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Momentous Retirements

Two of the old lions of British Baseball have announced their retirements from the game.

Vivian Sharp has retired. Left fielder Sharp incurred the nickname “Mad Dash” for his daring advance on a short wild pitch to secure the Baseball Association Cup for the Rams of Derby County versus Burnley Clarets at London’s Kennington Oval in 1887, the year before he entered with the Rams into the Baseball League for its inaugural season. He played nine more seasons with the Rams before his trade to Blackpool of the Second Division for the 1897 campaign, and then to Blackburn for 1903. He ended his career with Nottingham Forest in 1904 and 1905.

Sharp’s primary talent was finding any possible way to get on base— there has not been another like him in that regard. No one from his era could draw bases on balls like Sharp, amassing 1,400 across his 18 years, and he could get base hits as well, 1,200 to be precise. During his career he got on base in over 50 per cent of plate trips, and to-day’s stars like Frederick Wigley and Horatio McLaren are heirs to that peculiar legacy. Sharp also batted .323, stole 486 bases, and managed to hit eleven home runs as well. His best season was 1893, when in ninety games with the Rams he batted .381, stole 56 bases and got on base 55 per cent of the time. Were there a Batsman of the Year award at the time he surely would have earned it.

But it is for his “Mad Dash” that Sharp will always be remembered and revered.

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Momentous Retirements

Two of the old lions of British Baseball have announced their retirements from the game.

The old left fielder Charles Stanford has retired. He started his career as a twenty five year old with Northwich Victoria in the old Baseball Alliance in 1889 before moving on to Burslem Port Vale upon the creation of the Second Division in 1892. He quickly became one of the best batsmen in the game, and was one of the first .400 batsmen, batting .401 in a full season with the Valiants in 1898. He led the Division in 1895 with a .370 hits average as well. He was also one of the better sluggers of his time, finding many years, and finished with himself regularly among the leaders in home runs, and finished his career with 67 in total.

Looking back it is believed Stanford would have won Batsman of the Year in at least three years, 1894, 1895 and 1898, his best year. Through no fault of his the Valiants were voted out of the League for the 1896 and 1897 seasons, but as you have read, he returned with a vengeance in 1898. Stanford played for seventeen season, spread evenly with six in the First Division, six in the Second, and six in high quality non-League ball. He was an effective player all the way to the end.

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Championship Series For 1906

In the wake of the 1905 First Division season came calls for a championship tournament series to determine one and for all the best baseball club in Britain. This will occur for the first time in 1906.

Few believed that Sunderland were the unqualified best side in British baseball in 1905, despite their superior attack, four victory season advantage and, perhaps most importantly, their four of six victories against United directly during the season. Many believe that United pitching would vanquish the Sunderland attack in a seriously-contested end of season championship series played for the Emperor of India Cup, and the League has agreed to afford the top two clubs of the First Division such an opportunity beginning with next year's competition.

The League might have benefited from such a tournament to crown prior season champions. Bolton Wanderers won the League Cup in the 1900 competition over Blackburn Rovers by a scant single length, although many thought Rovers generally excelled over Wanderers on the season. Bolton also beat out Newcastle United by a game in 1898, while United returned the favour over Wanderers by two games the following season.

Even if a leading club clear the division’s runner-up by several lengths, one clear advantage of a championship series would be the heighten interest and excitement among supporters of the League, as well as generate additional gate for the best teams, and for the League in all.

The format of such a series will be similar to how the top leagues of the United States have played their so-called “World’s Series”, championship tournaments which have been contested on and off over the past twenty years. In America currently, the champion of each of the two major leagues play in a series of between four and seven matches, in which the first club to win four from the other is declared the champion and winner of the Cup, and any remaining matches are rendered moot and thus are not played. Of course, such a “first to four” series here must occur between the top two clubs in only the First Division, as obviously the champion of the Second Division would not be considered fair and even competition for almost any club in the top tier, let alone the club at the top of the table, and thus would not constitute a fair fight.

Also in discussion by the League is an in-season cup tournament, along the lines of the former BA or current FA cup tournaments, which would interrupt the championship season for up to a week at a time, since the competitions would have to be played as a series of matches given the vagaries of individual games, to wit, poor teams occasionally do beat champion form teams on individual instances. Nothing along these lines is imminent, but does stoke interest among certain League board members and may return as a point of discussion in future sessions.

[dward1]

interesting. I wonder if this will last or if the single-table supporters will eventually see this overturned. what about a playoff series between the 2nd/3rd team in the Second Division and the 2nd/3rd from bottom in the top division for promotion, will that eventually be considered?

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Originally Posted by dward1

interesting. I wonder if this will last or if the single-table supporters will eventually see this overturned. what about a playoff series between the 2nd/3rd team in the Second Division and the 2nd/3rd from bottom in the top division for promotion, will that eventually be considered?

There was that sort of playoff series situation in the 1890s. Starting in 1892, the League set up a playoff format in which teams at the bottom of D1 played best two of threes with the appropriately placed D2 club. In 1895 they went to a second season format of eight games apiece. The League dropped the playoff idea altogether with expansion in 1898 and went to direct promotion and relegation based strictly on table placement.

This playoff series will involve only for top two clubs playing for the EOI cup.

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Baseball: 1906 League Competition Begins To-Day

With the arrival of another May comes the start of British baseball’s premier competition, the Baseball League season. And with this particular season comes substantial changes.

The most important change is the addition of the end of season championship series between the top two clubs in the First Division, the winner of which will lift the Emperor of India Cup. This decision, while roundly approved, did not occur without some controversy. The spectre of the clear champion being defeated by the obviously inferior runner up who happened to have a good enough run to defeat the former makes some purists nervous. Nevertheless, even the strongest detractors would fairly be recognised as mild detractors, and everyone in the sport understands that this should be quite good for the game, its supporters and the gate.

One other change will be in the size of active squads in both divisions, and the extension of squads after July 30th in the First Division. As complaints of player fatigue have gone from muted to quite open in the past few years, clubs were forced to accede to the call of creating two more slots, bringing active squad size to twenty one for the 1906 competition. First Division clubs have decided to take the concept a step further to allow expansion of squads to twenty six players as of August 31st, to provide relief during the end days of the long season. The Second Division has decided not to follow suit.

On the pitch itself, Sunderland look to be the top team in the Kingdom, and who could quite qualify for the appellation of “clearly superior” detailed above. Their attack, led by left fielder Bradley Betts and the still effective short stop Edwin Stevenson should outpace the competition handily, and on the other side of the ball, the return of starters William Turner and Sydney London, buttressed by the addition of Edwin Eales, late of the Clapton Orient O’s, should be enough to easily place them in the end of year series against any of the probables that include Newcastle United, Liverpool and Blackburn.

The Second Division appears to have London clubs ascendant, as Chelsea look unusually strong and poised to challenge for a top tier slot along with Tottenham Hotspur. The Blues were led into the League for the 1905 championship by short stop Frederick Austin, who barely slipped at all maintaining his batting prowess against putatively tougher competition. Spurs must rely on health from Andrew Kirk, limited to only sixty matches last year because of two separate stints on injury leave, whilst at the same time wringing one more terrific summer effort from their old starters Louis Sykes and Willie Murphy. Chesterfield will be as strong a contender as Harold Bridgeman can take them, as he is of such talent and polish that he may well lift them up to the First Division by himself.

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Baseball League 1906: Clubs

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

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Baseball League 1906: Club Locations


First Division



Second Division

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Unusual No Hitter

In front of a scant fifteen hundred supporters hosted by perennial mid table dwellers Manchester United, pitcher Edward Kemp proved as unlucky as a Red Devil can be whilst pitching against the Middlesbrough club.

Kemp pitched sharply from the very beginning. He allowed bases to Boro batsmen only in the second, fifth and eighth innings, and none of them on base hits. Yet, after the ninth innings had been played, the score stood at nil runs to nil, and a tenth innings had to be played.

The bad luck for Kemp commenced during that innings as he immediately walked right fielder Walsh, who was erased at second base on a ground ball by centre fielder Morris. Kemp then hit short stop Geary with a pitch, and he walked second baseman Brooke to load all bases. Obviously flustered, Kemp then served a flat pitch on a platter to catcher Chaplin who knocked the run in with a deep fly ball out to left centre field, scoring Morris. Not that it would have mattered, as Kemp’s own catcher Bliss let a ball pass him on a pitch to the opposing pitcher Deighton, moving runners to second and third bases, before Deighton let Kemp “off the hook” in seemingly collegial fashion by grounding out to short stop, thus ending the innings, but not before Kemp and the Red Devils saw themselves down a run.

The bottom of that innings also saw some excitement as, after two batsmen had made out, right fielder Blair drew his own base on balls on four straight and Bliss atoned for his passed ball with a sharp single to right, Blair making third on as close a play as you will see with the entire match at risk. Kemp had the chance to atone for his own mistakes as well, but it was not to be as he lofted a lazy fly ball to right field, and the game was done, Kemp the loser of a nil runs to one game in which he yielded not a single base hit.

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Sunderland’s Wild Costly Loss

The Black Cats of Sunderland began the dawn of the month of September a mere one match behind the surprising Burton United club, and every game carries great import at that time of year.

So imagine the shock among the supporters of Sunderland upon learning that a routine game against a flailing Manchester United club turned out to be a golden opportunity horribly squandered.

Edward Kemp, author of a strange no hit effort just a fortnight or so ago, was not at all on his game while coughing up six runs and leaving after his seventh innings with a four run deficit. His Red Devil teammates rescued him from debit for the loss, though, as they plated four runs in the bottom of the frame to take a six six draw into the eighth.

Sunderland, in a fight for the season that's not being experienced in Manchester, scored three runs in the eighth on a Frank Taylor two and Bradley Betts three, to find themselves leading by three, which they held until the ninth innings.

Edwin Eales, Black Cats starter, faltered almost immediately. He induced a weak ground out, but gave up three consecutive singles to allow one run to score. After retiring centre fielder Saunders on a fielder’s choice, Eales lost the next batsman Lovell on a short popup which became a two and scored the two base runners, drawing the game at nine. Charles Southern replaced Eales and got the next batsman, Stevenson, on a short fly to right field.

Sunderland and Burton exchanged runs in the tenth innings, but the Black Cats should have neatly sewn up the match in the twelfth with three runs in the top of the innings, only to see pitcher Southern fairly disintegrate in the twelfth, yielding in order a single, a fielder’s choice, a single, a single for two runs, a two baser, a balk for a third run, a base on balls, and a single to Stevenson to plate the winning run and cap as wild a match as had been played ever in League history, none before with such probable impact on the race for the Emperor of India Cup.

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Morgan Fans Twenty in Five Hour Loss

Newcastle United’s Jesse Morgan, the widely acknowledged greatest pitcher in British history, performed another amazing feat in an early season match against West Ham United even though the result was a defeat for him and the Magpies.

Pitching all seventeen innings, Morgan struck out twenty Hammers along the way, smashing his own extra inning mark of fifteen he had achieved as a much younger man in 1899. Alas, he also gave up sixteen base hits and two walks along the way which even in seventeen innings is bound to lead to some runs, to wit, three, one more than his own mates could muster against the Hammers; United left seventeen runners stranded on their bases at the end of the various innings, and lack of completed revolutions cost the Black Cats the match, two runs to three, in front of four thousand disappointed supporters.

Nevertheless, tip your hat to the greatest pitcher you may ever see in your lifetime. Jesse Morgan has no equal to-day or yesterday, and perhaps not even to-morrow. At thirty two years of age he is not immortal, as his faltering after five hours of hard pitching attests. Run, run to the nearest ballpark to see him perform while you still can.

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Baseball League 1906
First Division Results

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Baseball League 1906
Emperor of India Cup Series

Newcastle United defeated Burton United
Four Matches to One

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Baseball League 1906
First Division Champions and Emperor of India Cup Winners




Newcastle United Magpies

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Baseball League 1906
Emperor of India Cup Runners Up

Burton United

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Baseball League 1906
First Division Final Table

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Baseball League 1906
First Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1906
First Division Award Winners

Batsman and Newcomer of the Year: Robert Arscott




Baseballer of the Year and Pitcher of the Year: Jesse Morgan

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Baseball League 1906
First Division League Leaders

Batting Leaders




Pitching Leaders