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

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Baseball League, Baseball Alliance
Merge in Historic Agreement

In an arrangement that is sure to spur tremendous growth for base ball throughout the Kingdom, The Baseball Alliance will set aside its waning independence and allow itself to be absorbed into the Baseball League, which will now serve as the governing body for all top level professional base ball in Britain.

The agreement comes amid some controversy, as the Midlands League and Lancashire League both claim to have been promised the first opportunity to merge with the powerful Baseball League. However, they will have to bide their time while the Alliance, which had had designs on usurping the primacy of the League, decided in the end that is better to serve a master profitably than to starve on your own.

The newly extended league will now host twenty-eight clubs, to be split into two divisions. The First Division will encompass the sixteen clubs that would have made up the League this year, whilst the Second Division will make up the collection of twelve clubs that would have been the Alliance.

The League also announced that it will follow through on a plan that’s been in motion for a year to move to weekday base ball, although as expected, they will leave the Sabbath be so as not to disturb man’s ordained communion with the Lord. The season for First Division clubs will be ninety games long, which will fit neatly into a fifteen week period starting in late May and ending in mid September. This will serve both player and patron well as 1891 was one of the chilliest English summers in memory. Games will start neatly at four o’clock throughout the week for every club save Saturday, on which games will start at two o’clock as nearly all iron, textile and shipbuilding workers now receive the half-holiday that was implemented a few years ago.

On the contrary, the Second Division will maintain their schedule at the weekends for another season, while undertaking plans to start on a weekday schedule themselves for the 1893 season.

The league will also employ an automatic promotion and relegation scheme which will involve clubs from each division playing a series of test matches against their appropriately placed counterparts in the other division to determine which clubs will advance or retreat between the divisions. The scheme was devised as an attempt to forgo the potential political intrigue that has manifested itself in prior seasons due to favouritism of certain chairmen and clubs because of their relationships with men of authority. In this new scheme, the only determinant will be the merits of play on the pitch itself, a far more rational method with which to approach the question.

One other scheme the League will experiment with, should the need arise, is the playing of test matches to break season-long draws, to avoid what was considered within certain clubs the scourge of shared championships that had characterized previous seasons in 1888 and 1889, and had left those at the top wholly dissatisfied with the taste. The test match to break the draw, if needed, will occur the Monday following the last match of the season. We can’t say we ourselves are happy with this Americanisation of our unique base ball product. But the League have spoken, and it shall be so.

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The 1892 Season is Here—Now TWO Divisions
in The League to Follow!

The joy that is following the exploits of the Baseball League is now greater by three-fourths again. With twenty-eight clubs to mind versus the prior sixteen, the interest level in both the League and in base ball should be much more palpable, as now any one of the clubs can rise to the top of the top flight within two years. The Baseball Alliance was a fine brand of game while it was around, to be sure, but as the denizens of the Champs-Élysées might say, it had none of the “cachet” the League confers upon its member clubs and its attendant proceedings.

Not that the Second Division are a pile of horse manure, either. The base ball being played there, as mentioned earlier, was all well and good, and the champions of last year’s Alliance, the Foresters of Nottingham, should acquit themselves quite nicely in the First Division this year. But as the Alliance, per se, the product was perceived as rather second-rate.

But as the Second Division of the Baseball League start up on Friday, we shall thrill to the exploits of new baseballers such as “Speedy” Edward McCready of the Blues of Everton, Danny Thompson of the Lincoln City Imps, and Cornelius Gilbert of the Burton Swifts; and on the mound, Charles Grundy of the Vics of Northwich Victoria will surely dazzle with his “stuff”, his control and his movement, but don’t keep Abe Walker of Grimsby Town and Elias Hampton of the freshly-relegated Small Heath club far from mind.

The biggest story to follow will be the efforts of the Everton Blues to regain position in the first level which they’d lost three years back. As bad as the Reds of Accrington are to-day, it is difficult to remind oneself that Everton were in quite the same boat in ’89, albeit without the public dramatics of its front office and managerial staff. A keen eye will be kept on them and their quest.

Lest we forget, there is another division to mind: that of The First. The Villans aim to rule it for at least as long as did the Clarets of Burnley, and will get stiff competition from the aforementioned newly-arrived Foresters and their mainstay neighbours the Magpies of Notts County. Expect runs on the title from the Black Cats of Sunderland and Wolves of Wolverhampton as well.

We continue to mourn the waste of talent in Derby that is Vivian Mad Dash Sharp, still the best player in the League, and Brandon Phillips, certainly the best young pitcher in the League as well. With the waste of human flesh that surround them, one should not be surprised to see these two fine players regrettably drummed out of the top flight come September, and perhaps out of the League in two years. If there is a way young Joe Hulland, chairman of the Rams, can be shamed into putting an effort into placing a competent all-around product onto the pitch, please post us forthwith, and we promise we will follow through on the tactic with gusto.

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Baseball League 1892: Clubs

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Baseball League 1892: Club Locations

First Division



Second Division

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Baseball League 1892 : Top Prospects

[dl_]

Let me start off by saying that I never liked historical leagues, because they are hard to keep track of with players I am not familiar of, and the fact I simply don't have a thing for them. However, you have done an amazing job so far and I will be reading and anxiously waiting for the next posts. Just a few questions though..

Prior to the Alliance transforming into the second division, how were their seasons played? Same with the Midland and Southern leagues you refer to; how do they operate now?

What's these two baseballs you talk of? Did you just change the league factors to strengthen pitching and weaken hitting?

How do the rosters look like for an average team? I assume that prior to this season every team had three starters only. How many relievers in the pen for most teams and how often were they used? Did starters often go all nine innings?

Thanks, and good luck as you continue!

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Originally Posted by dl_

Let me start off by saying that I never liked historical leagues, because they are hard to keep track of with players I am not familiar of, and the fact I simply don't have a thing for them. However, you have done an amazing job so far and I will be reading and anxiously waiting for the next posts.

Thanks for the nice post!

I decided back in the beginning that I would go in a bit of a different direction with my dynasty. I wanted to make it more about the league itself, rather than about a particular team, or about me managing a team. I wanted the league and the idea and its evolution to be the star of the show. I would just establish the parameters, step back and let it happen, and then write about the results, for the most part.

I know that's not for everybody and a lot of people, perhaps most people, prefer following dynasties focusing on specific teams and OOTP players. But I was hoping I could get at least a few people in to follow my concept, even though it's a bit out of the box.

Originally Posted by dl_

Just a few questions though..

Prior to the Alliance transforming into the second division, how were their seasons played? Same with the Midland and Southern leagues you refer to; how do they operate now?

The Alliance before, and the Midlands League now, are played as minor leagues in the background. I'm using those as breeding grounds for the new teams I am introducing when its time, because I didn't want to just create new teams out of thin air (or any kind of air, for that matter). I wanted teams and players to come in with a bit of history already. Plus, I wanted to have a place to send teams that get voted out of the lowest division, rather than deleting the teams and then recreating them with new players out of some kind of air when they need to come back. It'll happen with a few teams down the road.

The leagues are actually playing games, but I'm not reporting on them because the thread is about the Baseball League, not about any of the minor leagues.

Originally Posted by dl_

What's these two baseballs you talk of? Did you just change the league factors to strengthen pitching and weaken hitting?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. Truthfully, I was concerned about the circumstance at the beginning in which hardly anyone was striking out. In 1888, lots of guys had over 300 at bats but single digit strikeouts. They can't all be Joe Sewell, so something had to change. Meantime, the Alliance had a more reasonable strikeout rate. So I adjusted the factors for the League to be closer to those of the Alliance going into 1891, and I created this story about the difference between the original League ball (flat seams, no movement on pitches) and the Alliance ball (higher seams, better movement on pitches). Do you think that works?

Originally Posted by dl_

How do the rosters look like for an average team? I assume that prior to this season every team had three starters only. How many relievers in the pen for most teams and how often were they used? Did starters often go all nine innings?

The League starts out with an 18-man limit, which works out to thirteen position players and five pitchers for most teams, although some teams gave themselves 14 and 4 (hey, they got free will, they can do what they want). There are lots of complete games as you would imagine: 67% of all games in 1891 were CG, up from 36% for the three years before that. I assume that's because of the new Alliance ball leading to decreased hitting.

Originally Posted by dl_

Thanks, and good luck as you continue!

Thank you, and I do need luck: I had the 1892 season all played out and the stories written, but I had a problem with Windows Explorer that caused me to hard shut down, and every time I tried to open up the game again I got an error message and the game would shut down, but only on the Baseball League game. Fortunately, I had Opening Day of 1892 saved as a backup, so I ended up just restoring that and replaying the season. Had I not done that, the error might have killed off the whole dynasty!

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Results

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Champions

Aston Villa Villans

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Final Table

Promotion and relegation was decided in a series of Test Matches between the bottom three clubs in Division 1 and the top three clubs in Division 2. The third from bottom club in Division 1 played the third club in Division 2, the second from bottom in Division 1 played the second club in Division 2 and the bottom club in Division 1 played the top club in Division 2 in first-to-two-wins test match series with the winners playing in Division 1 the following season and the losers in Division 2.



Having lost their place in the First Division in the Test Match Series, Accrington resigned from the League before the following season started rather than take up a place in Division 2.

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1892
First Division League Leaders

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1892
First Division Financial Report

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Baseball League 1892
Second Division Results

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Baseball League 1892
Second Division Promoted Teams

Grimsby Town Mariners



Everton Blues



Small Heath Blues

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Baseball League 1892
Second Division Final Table

Promotion and relegation was decided in a series of Test Matches between the bottom three clubs in Division 1 and the top three clubs in Division 2. The third from bottom club in Division 1 played the third club in Division 2, the second from bottom in Division 1 played the second club in Division 2 and the bottom club in Division 1 played the top club in Division 2 in first-to-two-wins test match series with the winners playing in Division 1 the following season and the losers in Division 2.



Having lost their place in the First Division in the Test Match Series, Accrington resigned from the League before the following season started rather than take up a place in Division 2.

For the 1893 season, the Second Division will be extended from 12 to 16 clubs. Lincoln City, Bootle, Sheffield United and Walsall Town Swifts have all been re-elected to the Second Division. New clubs elected to the Second Division are Woolwich Arsenal (London), Liverpool, Newcastle United and Rotherham Town.

Accrington, having elected to resign from the League rather than be relegated to the Second Division, will be replaced by Middlesbrough Ironopolis.

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Baseball League 1892
Second Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1892
Second Division League Leaders