Up for the baseball cup
No sooner had Arsenal squandered their chance to be crowned outright baseball league champions, then they were given another chance at glory.
Sir Francis Ley owned and operated an ironworks in Derby, and had used his success in this business to set up several sporting endeavours in the town for the benefit of his workers and the local community.
He founded Derby Baseball Club in 1889 having been intrigued by the sport during a visit to the US. A touring side that played exhibition games in the UK the same year had piqued the public interest, and the next year Derby Baseball Club – ostensibly a works team – was among the four founding members of the National Baseball League of Great Britain in 1890.
This was the first and only season of baseball to be professional, and featured Derby, Preston North End, Aston Villa, and Stoke. Villa won the league title, but the competition was overshadowed by accusations of cheating and Derby’s withdrawal part way through the season.
Despite this, Ley continued to be a fan of baseball and sport in general. For more than a century from 1895, Derby County Football Club played its home games at Ley’s purpose-built (and later slightly repurposed) Baseball Ground.
Fast forward to 1906 and Sir Francis was still keen to promote baseball, and the British Baseball League teams were more than happy to compete for another trophy.
A draw was made featuring the league’s six teams in early August, and Woolwich Arsenal and Nondescripts were given a bye to the semi-finals.
On 9 August, five days after Tottenham had comfortably beaten Leyton 23-15 in the league, Spurs handed the same opponents a 27-8 thrashing to set up another meeting with Arsenal.
The other first round game was played on 13 August, just after the end of the league season. Fulham lost 15-6 to Clapton Orient – the Cottagers’ fourth straight defeat. This meant Orient would take on Nondescripts in the other semi-final.
What was the mood like among the Arsenal players as they headed to north London to take on Tottenham for the third time that season? The Gunners had twice beaten Spurs, but despite this had seen their advantage in the league eroded in the last few weeks to the point where the championship was shared.
Spurs, meanwhile, were on a five-game winning streak and had scored more than 20 in three of those games. Jarman, the celebrated pitcher, had restricted the scoring of several teams giving Spurs the best defensive record in the league. (I’m not sure if it’s actually called defence, or DE-fence, in baseball, but you know what I mean.)
In the end it was Jarman that ruled the day, frustrating the Arsenal batters by pitching five consecutive innings without conceding a run. Arsenal got just two, in the end, to Spurs’ 15.
The following match report appeared in The Sportsman on 17 August 1906. Additions [in brackets] are mine.
Tottenham Hotspur v Woolwich Arsenal
Although comparatively new to Londoners, the most favoured American pastime is rapidly obtaining followers, and bids fair to become popular. The niceties of the game, and what to the casual spectator appears to be a rather complicated method of scoring, are things that are not to be mastered by watching one match, yet there is no doubt that basebell is a stirring sport. It interests at once, and is not only strenuous but, played by capable men, a highly scientific pastime that calls for alertness of mind, eye, and limbs.
That it has caught on at Tottenham was emphasised last evening, when fully 500 spectators witnessed the semi-final tie in the above competition [Sir Francis Ley’s Cup]. As a game it was of rather a one-sided character, for the Hotspur men, who won by fifteen runs to two, were much the superior. Their pitching, fielding, and striking were class above that of their opponents, whilst their base-running indicated a much better knowledge of the finer points. Many of the runs that they scored were made by this extra “slimness”. They went off in capital form, and were always leading in the six innings that were played in the match.
[Note: Games were supposed to be nine innings each, but had to be at least five innings for a result to stand. The shortness of this match may have been due to rain, although there is no mention of this. More likely it was due to bad light, as the game didn’t start until 5pm.]
Afterwards an extra innings was played, in which [Tottenham’s] Steel made what is known as a home run, the biggest hit of the whole proceedings. In this he ran completely round the diamond-shaped field.
It would appear that even baseball umpires do not give unlimited satisfaction. This is, perhaps, the most unthankful task of all officials, for he has to call his decision on every ball delivered. Last evening the gentleman who officiated was both ready and accurate, but he did not satisfy a certain one of the players.
[There is no mention of any intervention from the Portrait-painting Assistant Referee.]
The teams were:
Woolwich Arsenal: Birch (pitcher), Morehouse (catcher), Angeily [possibly Angilly] (first base), Wiggins (second base), Taylor (short stop), Lindon (third base), Dick (left field), Bellamy (centre field), Perry (right field).
Tottenham Hotspur: W. Jarman (pitcher), Burton (catcher), O’Brien (first base), Steel (second base), Whyman (short stop), Brearley (third base), Eames (left field), Keegan (centre field), and Roberts (right field).
[Just as John Dick and Jim Bellamy played for Arsenal at football as well as baseball, so several of the Spurs players, including Alfred Whyman and John Brearley, were also members of the football club.]
In the other semi-final on 18 August, Nondescripts – the ‘Dandies’, as they were sometimes known – continued their late season improvement in form to beat Clapton 13-6, setting up an unlikely final showdown with Tottenham for 25 August.
This match included what was believed to have been the first ‘triple play’ of the summer, as described in the Eastern Counties’ Times from 14 August 1906.
One of the brightest pieces of play seen this season was witnessed when Raincock, the Ilford man, brought off a beautiful catch in the left field, dismissing the batsman, then promptly sending the ball to Kelly, at third base, who put a second man out, and then forwarded the ball to Woolrich, between the first and second bases, enabling the latter to retire a third man. Thus the entire side was put out at one fell swoop. Moreover, this is believed to be the first triple play registered during the present baseball season in Britain. It was this magnificent piece of work which completely disconcerted and disorganised the Orient men. From that time on they never recovered, and the Nondescripts, taking a tight hold on the game, gave their opponents little or no chance of distinguishing themselves.
The cup final
And so to the showpiece game. On 25 August 1906, at Tottenham Hotspur’s ground, Spurs took on Nondescripts for the cup. Reports of the attendance varied substantially, from 2,500 to 4,000 depending on the newspaper, but it was certainly one of the biggest baseball crowds of the summer.
This match in the final round of the British Baseball Cup Competition was played in the presence of 2,500 spectators, and won by Tottenham Hotspur by 16 runs to 5. For the winners Brearley played a splendid game at third base, while Jarman pitched excellently and struck out three men. Burton was an efficient catcher, but the feature of his play was his accurate throwing to the bases.
(From the brief match report in the Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald, 31 August 1906.)
From start to finish there was an abundance of interest in the game, and although the Nondescripts lost to the tune of 16 runs to 5, the contest was in no way so one-sided as the score indicates. The Dandies were the first to congratulate the Spurs on their win, and to acknowledge that they well won on their merits, while the victors spontaneously admitted that the Ilford representatives had given them the stiffest fight of the season.
(Excerpt from the match report from the Eastern Counties’ Times from 31 August 1906. The paper was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nondescripts throughout the season, dedicating more column inches to games than most other local papers.)
The match was indeed fairly close throughout, but a six-run innings in the third from Spurs opened up a gap that Nondescripts never got close to closing. Spurs’ Burton and Keegan both hit home runs.
I wonder if this is still in the Tottenham Hotspur trophy cabinet…?
Let’s go run-crazy
Readers who are familiar with professional baseball in the US may be surprised to see just how high scoring some of the games in 1906 were.
League games in 1906 averaged more than 31 runs a game, with Woolwich Arsenal alone scoring 199 in their 10 league matches. Those in attendance at Arsenal’s 23 June match against Fulham were treated to no fewer than 54 runs in total, the Gunners winning 34-20.
Compare this with that year’s World Series champions, the Chicago White Sox, who averaged 3.8 runs per game, or their opponents, the Chicago Cubs, who averaged 4.6 runs a game according to ESPN data.
Obviously, the amateur nature of the game and the fact that it was essentially an experiment played a major role in the high scores. Many of those taking part would have been playing baseball for the first time and been more used to football or cricket, so adjusting to baseball’s unique requirements would have taken a while.
But there’s also something else – something more quintessentially British about how the game was perceived. We get an insight into this from Edward ‘Ted’ Everett, who appears to have been involved with the Fulham team for the 1907 season, whose letter to a friend in the US was passed on to Sporting Life in July 1907.
From this, I have taken it that the British crowds were far more interested in the running and base stealing than the big hitters. This may be because it’s closer to fielding in cricket – the excitement of a batter trying to avoid a runout is similar to one trying to steal a base.
Incidentally, Everett’s letter caused a bit of a stir, as you might imagine. The man himself attempted to clarify some of his remarks in a letter published on 10 July, presumably in part to try to calm any of his players or colleagues that may have been offended.
This didn’t exactly work to calm people down, though. A correspondent known only as “Oriental” - I assume due to an affiliation with Clapton Orient - took him to task on 12 July.
That told him.
(I’ll cover the England v America game alluded to here another time.)
There’s more to come on this story. For the 1907 season, Woolwich Arsenal entered again to a bigger competition - but soon started to regret it.