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

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Results

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Promoted Club

South Shields Tynesiders

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Promoted Club

Crewe Alexandra Railwaymen

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Final Table

The five League sides seeking re-election came up against four non-league sides in the vote for membership of the Baseball League. Voting (number of votes):

32      Everton                Elected to the League
23	Woolwich Arsenal       Re-elected to the League
20	West Bromwich Albion   Re-elected to the League
18	Huddersfield Town      Elected to the League
14	Bradford Park Ave.     Elected to the League
10	Wolverhampton	       Not re-elected to the League
7	Derby County	       Not re-elected to the League
4	Oldham Athletic        Not elected to the League
0	Bradford City          Not re-elected to the League

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Award Winners


Batsman of the Year: Joshua Lloyd




Pitcher of the Year: Harold Bridgeman




Newcomer of the Year and Baseballer of the Year: Charles Shaw

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division League Leaders

Batting Leaders

Pitching Leaders

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Top Systems

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Baseball League 1907
Second Division Financial Report

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Shocking Retirement

The greatest home run hitter in British history, Alistair Bolton, has retired. He is but three and thirty years of age.

Bolton suffered a grievous knee injury back on the 23rd of May, which cost him the opportunity to play all but sixteen matches of this entire programme last. After Reds won the EOI Cup against Sunderland, it became clear that Bolton’s knee would never heal enough t allow him to play at the highest level again, and so he has decided to retire rather than risk any further setbacks.

No one in League history has ever displayed such prodigious displays of power as has Alistair Bolton. In his career he has hit an astounding 268 home runs, well over one hundred more than his nearest peer, and he has produced eight out of the nine highest home run seasons in League history, at both levels, including thirty eight twice. Indeed, only one other baseballer has hit as many as twenty in a season.

Bolton also won the both Batsman of the Year and Baseballer of the Year accolades thrice, twice in the Second Division and once in the First.

This is a stunning loss for the Liverpool club despite their current possession of the EOI Cup. There will surely never be another baseballer who will match the powerful exploits of Alistair Bolton.

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The Players’ Union

Yesterday the Players’ Union, as advocated by Bradley Betts, the famous and respected Sunderland centre fielder, was successfully launched in Manchester. Betts was in the chair, and the attendance represented over 500 players. Among those present were Paterson (Preston North End), London and Watson (Sunderland), Salt (Newcastle), Evans (Blackburn Rovers), Groves (Sheffield United), Cole and Hall (West Bromwich), Campbell, MacCaig, Marshall and Clark (Bury), Brook and Murray (Bradford Park Avenue) and Elliott (Liverpool). The captain of Notts Forest, Aston Villa, The Wednesday, Everton, Bolton Wanderers, Hull City and Notts County proffered their support. It was definitely decided that the Players’ Union should be formed, and that a sub-committee of six be appointed to draft rules, subsequent to a meeting of Central players, which will be held in the course of a few days, probably on Monday next, in London.

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New Baseball To Be Used By League

The American style baseball will make its debut for the League programme of 1908.

The ball will be manufactured by the A. G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company in the United States, replacing the ball manufactured by the Duke & Son Company of Kent, who specialise in the manufacture of cricket balls; as such the manufacture of baseballs can be considered to be not their métier. However, over eighty per cent of the output of the Spalding company is related to baseball, a fact very attractive to the League, who are eager to make their mark on the world as an outfit equal to that of any baseball league in the world, including of those in America.

Unlike the Dukes baseball, which has a hard consistency with relative flatness of surface, the Spalding baseball will consist of horsehide cover surrounding string wound densely around a cork centre, which will provide less resilience and should yield shorter and softer hits, resulting in fewer home runs over fences and fewer long hits for extra bases.

The other prominent feature of the Spalding ball is that of the “seams”, which will be bright red and appear as stitches raised quite high on the ball. This will allow the pitcher to grip the ball with more confidence and make it much easier for him to make the ball curve and dip and bend to his will, thus confusing the batsmen and leading to weak contact.

This significant change should serve to tip the balance of power from the batsman to the pitcher, and is expected to lead to lower batting averages, fewer base hits and runs, lower earned runs averages and possibly shorter games, the last of which should please attending patrons as many games of late have exceeded two and a half hours, making many a man quite late for tea to the consternation of the missus.

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Baseball: The 1908 Season’s Prospects

Active preparations are being made for the coming baseball season—preparations which lend us the promise of extending days and the sure passing of winter, with its football and ice-skating and hurling, and the approach of the season which is enlivened in the world of sport by the vigorous summer game of baseball.

The class of the League look to be the Liverpool club. After years of struggle in the Second Division they finally broke free after the 1901 programme to place themselves among the clubs of the Football Championship ever since, and now have risen to challenge the firm hold on the top of the table held variously by the Newcastle and Sunderland clubs of late. Although the passing of Alistair Bolton into retirement may serve as a slight impediment, Reds are squad rich with short stop Beveridge and left fielder Smith leading the attack, and pitchers Reid, Connolly and Finn captaining the defence from the mound. Sunderland and Blackburn, as well as “dark horse” clubs Manchester United and Walsall, look to sneak into the Cup tie in September with the Championship winner.

In the lower tier, Might this be the year Chelsea finally make their move towards the top? That would greatly delight League officials in their quest to extend the league throughout the Kingdom and break the dominance of clubs and supporters from Lancashire and the Midlands in general. Birmingham and Notts County will try to have their say about that, and do not count out Chesterfield Town, Manchester City, Bolton or West Brom, either.

The balance shift wrought by the change in baseball construction expects to be in constant discussion throughout the year as spring practice matches displayed a distinct advantage tilted towards the pitchers. We should expect run scoring to decrease and probably by a lot, and although by how much is not quite clear it is doubtful any teams will bat a collective .300 throughout the season, as has been common in the past. How the gate will be affected by this circumstance is of some concern to the clubs—it is thought that supporters enjoy sustained energetic attack, and lack of such might serve to keep supporters at home and satisfied to read the results in the evening papers instead, rather than suffer through a steady and boring parade of out after out being made.

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Baseball League 1908: Clubs

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

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Baseball League 1908: Club Locations


First Division




Second Division

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Just To Make Quite Certain

Taking to heart the adage that the ball game is not over until the final out is recorded, the surging Port Vale club sought to seal the coffin for the opposing South Shields club, and did so in record fashion.

Already taking an eight runs to one lead into the top of ninth innings, the Valiants went on to spend most of the next game scoring run after run and by the time they were finally retired by outs, they had plated fourteen tallies against the Tynesiders.

One could reasonably accuse the Valiants of acting in an unsporting manner by scoring far more runs than they would ever need, but as anyone who has spent the last two decades closely watching baseball matches can tell you, a club can never have enough runs to feel secure in victory, as long as there is no clock to ease their minds in the pursuit of such. After, was it likely that the Tynesiders would score twenty or more runs in the bottom of the ninth innings to draw level or win the match? Not at all. On the other hand, was it impossible for the Tynesiders to score twenty or more runs in the bottom of the ninth innings to draw level or win the match? Again, not at all.

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22 Innings Match

A record was set in Sunderland, one that precipitated the suspension of a game for the first time in League history. For the match between Black Cats and the visiting West Ham United club commenced on Tuesday at three o’clock sharp, and as the sun set and the clock rang half eight, the players, umpires and supporters could see nothing more and the game was halted after the third out of the bottom of the seventeenth innings, which was made when Black Cats pitcher Crisp, working the mound in relief but presently having doubled as a batsman, was thrown out at home plate trying to end the game in honest fashion with a win for his club. Instead, another innings beckoned, but the umpires could take no more and, having consulted both managers, yielded to the inevitability of the Lord’s nature.

Remaining were perhaps half of the original six thousand patrons, trudging home in disappointment only to yield the joy of watching victory to the next day’s ticket buyers, who saw five additional innings free of charge culminating in third baseman Watson taking a pitch to the rib cage in the bottom of the twenty second innings, forcing home fellow infielder Reilly and finally taking the win for Black Cats by eleven runs to ten,

Immediately the regularly scheduled game ensued, and the fresh six thousand who showed up with tickets for the Wednesday match not only saw five innings from Tuesday’s game, but also saw eleven innings of the game they paid for, themselves seeing the sun set just as their left fielder Betts singled home the winning tally for a Sunderland eleven innings win by five runs to four, much to the relief of all on the pitch. Then both teams proceeded wearily to the train station to travel to their respective destinations for yet another tilt at three o’clock in yet another town the very next day.

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Baseball League 1908
First Division Results