This is post seven in a ten-post countdown to SABR Day 2011. The series is going through the decades of the 20th Century, backwards from the 1990s. On SABR Day itself, there will be a special feature on the 1890s, which will celebrate the significant link between keeping score and baseball history. This article will be published at 05:00 British time in order to coincide with the start of the day in the time-zone of the Cleveland-based SABR office. To view all the Cobbettes published to date, click here.

1930s

Happy New Year to all BaseballGB readers. Today we have something a little different for you, which is an All-Star team from the London Major Baseball League of 1936, a year at the peak of the game’s short “golden era” in the country (this professional circuit is described in detail in British Baseball and the West Ham Club). But rather than using talent and popularity as criteria for a place on the team, the selection is based purely on the quality of the players’ name, as listed in the programmes from that year held in the Anthony Taylor collection.

Starting pitcher – Bozo Fisk (White City)
Relief pitcher – Bernie Ziff (Hackney Royals)
Catcher – Snooker Ruvinsky (Hackney Royals)
First base – Bud Kashner (White City)
Second base – Poison Asbell (West Ham)
Third base – George Gathercole (White City)
Shortstop – Slugger Cranston (Romford Wasps)
Left field – Lazy Bones MacPhail (Romford Wasps)
Centre field – Smokey Harper (Romford Wasps)
Right field – Sugar Tait (Romford Wasps)
Bench player 1 – Pinky Down (White City)
Bench player 2 – Barney Dobbin (Hackney Royals)
Bench player 3 – Mud Hawk Creamey (Romford Wasps)

If you have an interesting history snippet to share that has a link to Britain then please send a message to Joe Gray through the Get in contact page. To see all of the work of Project Cobb, which is a Chartered Community of SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research), click here.