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

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Baseball League 1928
Second Division Financial Report

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Rothwell Matches Game Strike out Record.

On a mild day pockmarked with clouds hither and yon, and with the aid of a fortunate breeze, Dermot Rothwell, the excellent and powerful pitcher for the surging Southampton club, continued his streak of high strike out games with his pièce de resistance: 17 of them in a single match, the first time this has occurred in this century in the Baseball League. At the end, the Saints defeated Queens Park Rangers by the score of six runs to one, to maintain their narrow lead in the Southern Section of the Third Division by two lengths over Bristol Rovers. This is all well and good, but all the talk around the gateway to the world was about the tremendous performance by Rothwell.

Rothwell dominated the woebegone Rangers from start to finish. He struck out at least one batsman in each innings, and got all three outs in this manner in both the fifth and, fittingly, the ninth innings, during which the roar of the crowd of 4,455 rang through the ground on each and every pitch. As soon as the final pitch and strike out had been recorded, the ecstatic patrons jumped over the railing and rushed out onto the pitch, hoisting Rothwell onto their shoulders and carousing and huzzaing like mad devils as the multitude transported the triumphant pitcher towards the bench, depositing him forthwith and vacating the premises upon slapping his back, shoulders and arms in congratulations, which surely must have left the spent hurler racked with bruises. It is a fortunate thing Rothwell has five days to recover, and he will surely need every minute of each to do so.

For the record, this is Rothwell’s third consecutive match in which he has recorded ten or more strike outs, and his fourth game in doing so for the season to date.

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Results

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division North Promoted Club

Stockport County Hatters

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division South Promoted Club

Southampton Saints

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Tables

Aberdare Athletic of the Southern Section resigned their League position. They are to be replaced by Aldershot, selected by acclamation.

Three non-league sides challenged the two North clubs seeking re-election to Division 3 of the Baseball League. Voting -

37      Wolverhampton             Re-elected to the League
24	Rochdale	          Re-elected to the League
2	Manchester Central	  Not elected to the League
1	Prescott Cables	          Not elected to the League
0	Chester	                  Not elected to the League
0	Rhyl   	                  Not elected to the League
0	Workington                Not elected to the League

Three non-league sides challenged the two South clubs seeking re-election to Division 3 of the Baseball League. Voting -

42      Newport County      Re-elected to the League
35	Plymouth	    Re-elected to the League
6	Llaney	            Not elected to the League
5	Argonauts           Not elected to the League
1	Kettering Town	    Not elected to the League
1	Thames Association  Not elected to the League

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Team Batting and Pitching

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division North Award Winners



Baseballer of the Year and Batsman of the Year: Ed Rigley




Pitcher of the Year: Chris Stephen




Newcomer of the Year: Ivor Kingston

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division South Award Winners


Baseballer of the Year: Peter Dallas




Batsman of the Year: Freddy Clarke




Pitcher of the Year: Cyril Macsin




Newcomer of the Year: Connor Smith

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division League Leaders

Northern Section

Batting Leaders

Pitching Leaders

Southern Section

Batting Leaders

Pitching Leaders

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Top Game Performances

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Top 20 Batsmen and Pitchers

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Top Systems

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Baseball League 1928
Third Division Financial Report

[dynaboyj]

Is this still being worked on? I'd really love to see it continue.

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Originally Posted by dynaboyj

Is this still being worked on? I'd really love to see it continue.

Yes, the dynasty is still in progress. I have had to work on some other things, plus I am going into beta testing, but I am hoping to get a couple more seasons done before I go on my trip at the end of February.

Thanks for your interest!

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MacCaig Announces Retirement from League Baseball.

Thomas MacCaig, one of the best pitchers in the annals of the Baseball League, is leaving the sport.

MacCaig, a southern Englishman by birth but a Scotsman in name and manner, joined the Bury baseball club aged nineteen years in 1903, and has toiled in the service of the Shakers ever since. He started out as a slight, wild throwing young pitcher who settled into a careful control artist, known for walking less than one batsman per start. He spent sixteen frequently frustrating seasons with Bury in the Second Division, where the club finished in the fifth place or higher six times before finally winning the division championship in 1922 and moving up to the top tier, where he pitched his final six seasons with the club.

MacCaig established himself not only as the greatest pitcher in the annals of the Second Division, but of the League over all. Only Brendan Phillips and Edmund Parker pitched more seasons than the 22 pitched by MacCaig, and he leaves the League the possessor of many accolades. He was the Second Division’s baseballer of the Year in their final season of 1922 in the loop, and MacCaig retires third in games pitched, innings pitched and victories; seventh in total strike outs; and thirteenth in earned runs average. In the Second Division alone, he is the all-time leader in games pitched, innings pitched, victories; is third in strike outs and earned runs average; and twelfth in win rate.

Despite his attempts to do so during the past three seasons, MacCaig fell short of becoming only second League pitcher in history to win 300 matches, finishing with 294. Among pitchers still in the game, William Murray of the Clapton Orient as the best opportunity to pass MacCaig in victories, although that now appears unlikely as Orient has removed Murray from the pitcher rotation in the same way Bury did with MacCaig towards the end of his career.

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The Baseball League

The Opening of the Season

It must be a little daunting that the opening of the Baseball League season to-morrow coincides with a period of winter-like weather which threatens to make things extremely uncomfortable for those playing and, especially, for those spectating. The encroachment on the winter season, however, is more a circumstance than any selfish desire to overlap other forms of sport which may be continued until the closing days of May.

While in a general way the cricket clubs are content to wait until the weather has made winter sports no longer practicable, the baseball player is only too ready to engage in his favourite pastime and play right on till the last Saturday in September. The growth of the fixture list since the war has made this arrangement imperative and, in spite of the development of counter-attractions, there have been no signs of any lack of enthusiasm either with the amateur or professional clubs. In fact the reverse has been the case.

That said, there is some level of disappointment at the failure of the game to achieve wider popularity abroad as has Association football. The development of football on the Continent has been regarded with much satisfaction as this has been due in no small part to the visits of British teams there. On the contrary, though many attempts have been undertaken, there has been no rooting of the game of baseball in Europe outside of lukewarm adoption in widely scattered countries such as Holland, Germany and Italy. Neither rhyme nor reason have dictated which other nations have taken up the game, except suffice to say that even in the nations that have done so there has been no groundswell of zeal in doing so. Baseball is, at its highest level, no more than club sport on the Continent.

Not true here, of course. However, it is, perhaps, a little strange that the chief interest in the game in the British Isles, and particularly in England, is more in the annual League competition than in either Cup or international competitions, interest in which seems to be waning with each passing year. The chief desire of the clubs is to carry off the EOI Cup, and the matches for the Cup arouse more interest by far than any other matches during the season.

In the later stages the League tournaments become more interesting through the system of promotion and relegation, and many are of the opinion that this system might be extended so that a larger number of clubs should exchange positions at the end of the season. The changes which have been made since last season are that Swansea Town and South Shields take the places of Watford and Oldham Athletic in the First Division of the League, while Stockport County and Southampton in the Second Division supersede Rotherham United and Bradford Park Avenue. The interest in these competitions grows when the first half of the season is over, for it is only then that the relative merits of the various teams can be judged. The fine struggle that took place for the second place of the Second Division last year, in which South Shields were in the end successful against the vying of same by Exeter City, created as much interest throughout the Island in that competition as in the matches of the better-known clubs.

Fulham’s capture of the EOI Cup last season notwithstanding, the continuing predominance of the northern clubs in the First Division always leaves the impression at the opening of a new season that the London clubs are inferior, but it is not unreasonable to expect that both the West Ham United and Chelsea clubs of the Second Division will improve upon their form of last season, and the Charlton Athletic stand that best chance of advancing from the lowest to the middle rungs as they were quite a good side last season, and are now considered the best of the Southern Section this season.

One minor change this season will be the official change of the name of The Wednesday club to that of Sheffield Wednesday, a name which had already been used in reference to the club for the past several years.

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Baseball League 1929: Clubs

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Baseball League 1929: Club Locations


First Division




Second Division




Third Division Northern Section




Third Division Southern Section