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

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Baseball League 1920: Clubs

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

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Baseball League 1920: Club Locations


First Division (Everton Hidden)




Second Division





Third Division (Queen's Park Rangers Hidden)

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Union Wins Victory of Higher Wages.

On the heels of the success of spectator endeavours of all kinds, particularly in the realm of sport, the nascent Professional Baseball Players’ Union scored a decisive victory in the pursuit of increased wages for its members in both the League and non-League loops. The League board has consented to a sixty per cent rise in the maximum wage to £8 per week, which during a 21-week season works out to roughly £170 for the year, a quite handsome remuneration for a class of individuals scarcely used to making such money. Not all baseballers will make this wage, of course—only the very best of the First Division talents will.

While the wages the players were making were quite acceptable before, it was also difficult to hide the fact that the clubs did extremely well at the gate in 1919, with many clubs approaching or even exceeding half a million of “fans” drawn through the season. As it is well known that the minimum ticket price for First Division matches was a shilling last year, with many other clubs charging in excess of this amount, it was impossible to hide the maths from the players, and especially from their clever union, who argued quite correctly that since it is the players the crowds come to see rather than the club boards or chairmen, it is only right that they share in the good fortune the period following the War has conferred upon the British people.

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First Native Indian League Player.

Given the manner in which the sport of baseball has spread throughout the old Empire, particularly across the Subcontinent, it was supposed to be inevitable that a native would make his way into the League, and now that has happened. That native is Shihkar Pujara, who is at once a skilled medium-fast bowler in cricket and the owner of a quite baffling pitch in baseball, both emanating from the left hand side.

Pujara’s bowling style is that of an outswinger, moving to the off side of the right handed batsman, but he can also mix in the inswinger to the left handed batsman as well. And such skiil is applicable to the baseball as well, as he has developed a pitch referred to as the “fadeaway”, the favoured delivery of the American pitching great Mathewson. The fadeaway is a sort of curve in reverse, as it veers towards the pitcher's throwing side rather than towards his glove side, making it an especially useful weapon against right handed batsmen. Pujara does throw a conventional curve that moves away from left handed batsmen and quite a nice one, but the fadeaway is the more useful arrow in his quiver since roughly two thirds of all batsmen do so from the plate's right side.

Pujara pitched effectively in the native school leagues of Bombay, and in fact was considered far and away the best pitcher in the land of any age, because of the effectiveness of his fadeaway. A Fulham director, Mr. R. S. Reynolds, came across Pujara pitching in a league game whilst on holiday this close season past and snapped him up straightaway for the upcoming season.

Pujara will attain twenty one years of age shortly after the start of the season, and will be given every chance to earn a spot in the Cottagers’ rotation.

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Record High Innings for a Single Match.

Friday saw the third match in League history suspended for length, which may give cause to the Board to change start times for games. The three o’clock commencement simply did not leave enough time, even with a nine fifteen sun set, to finish the game which ran seven hours and twenty four minutes, and so the match was suspended in the twentieth innings, to be resumed the following day at eleven o’clock in the morning, by special decree.

By the time it was all over, the clock had struck noon, twenty five innings had elapsed, and an exhausted Everton Blues scratched out three runs to defeat the home club Nottingham Foresters, seven runs to four, in front of the nine thousand patrons who had replaced the four thousand from the day and night before. Many among the throng were reported to have been pleased with the early time chosen for resumption of the match.

It had been a tight match drawn at one all as the ninth innings dawned, at which point Blues scored three with two already out, but Foresters answered with their own three courtesy of two horrible errors by Blues fieldsmen. Then the blanks started coming, and slowly at that, as most of the extra innings featured base runners put on by various methods. Each had opportunity to score and win the match on a few occasions—Everton in the 17th with one out; Forest in the 18th, the 21st, and the 24th with two out in each innings—when Blues finally made it stick in the 25th by scoring three, with Nottingham too spent to reply. Perhaps Forest were saving themselves for the scheduled one o'clock match, which did not pan out as they also lost that one eight runs to two.

The match exceeded the League record by two for total innings, and by our admittedly soft count, more than 700 pitches were heaved plateward, which also must be the highest in League annals, and more balls thrown than one might see in a full day of test cricket.

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Results

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Baseball League 1920
EOI Cup Series

Walsall defeated Manchester United
Four Matches to Three

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Champions and EOI Cup Winners




Walsall Swifts

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Baseball League 1920
EOI Cup Runners Up

Manchester United Red Devils

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Table

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Award Winners


Baseballer and Pitcher of the Year: William Stanton




Batsman of the Year: Jamie Ramsay




Newcomer of the Year: Jordan MacGachan

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Baseball League 1920
First Division League Leaders

Batting Leaders




Pitching Leaders

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Top Systems

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Baseball League 1920
First Division Financial Report

[Iamnobody]

I started this story yesterday and just finished it. Brilliant story. I want to do something similar in an American settings, but there are a couple things I'm hung up on.

Are your teams in the black? I was playing with the salary cap and it seems like teams are spending more then the salary cap I've instituted.

Do you manually change the average attendance yearly or is that just the natural evolution?

Brilliant thread all the way around.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by Iamnobody

I started this story yesterday and just finished it. Brilliant story. I want to do something similar in an American settings, but there are a couple things I'm hung up on.

Are your teams in the black? I was playing with the salary cap and it seems like teams are spending more then the salary cap I've instituted.

Do you manually change the average attendance yearly or is that just the natural evolution?

Brilliant thread all the way around.

Thanks for the good words. I appreciate that!

I don't use salary cap because it is a team cap. The League does have a maximum wage for individual players, but the game does not allow me to set that kind of hard cap, so I have to manage it manually. I do that through setting the typical Superstar's salary, although at times the player's salary can exceed the number. I have a schedule of typical salaries by player level that I set at the beginning of every season, then I download the rosters to ensure, among other things, that no player's salary exceeds this number.

Some teams have been carrying deficits for years, but with the newly raised ticket prices and hike in attendances, almost all of them should be into the black after this season.

I set average attendances for each division each year—I have a schedule for that, too—but every team's attendance depends on how the AI manages that team. You can see how attendances vary among the clubs, from 600,000+ for Walsall to under 200,000 for Hull City, Fulham and Burton. You will also see wide variations among clubs after I post the other divisions in the next couple of days.

[Trebro]

My God, the amount of time and offline work you and some of the other folks put into these historical dynasties amazes me. Must take all of your free time!