The old gem: Baseball Courier
Two important messages have recently landed in my inbox. The first came from Graham Rumble, who has been doing stalwart work for Project Cobb in recent months, and it contained a scan of an old British publication titled Baseball Courier. It was the precursor to William Morgan’s Baseball Mercury (which ran between 1972 and 1989), and 24 issues of the Courier were produced in total. While I’ve been able to digitize 49 of the 51 issues of the Mercury, I had not previously seen any issues of the earlier publication. So you can imagine my excitement when Graham emailed me with scans of an issue of the Courier that he’d been sent by long-time British baseball administrator Don Smallwood, MBE. You can find a link to the PDF of issue 18 here.
The real strength of William Morgan’s publications, in my view, is that they were written by people who had a very good understanding of baseball and a desire to chronicle the British game. If the other 23 issues of Baseball Courier are as good as issue 18 then their rediscovery is an absolute priority for Project Cobb. So if anyone remembers ever seeing any issues in a box up in the attic, please could you dig them out so that the information they contain can be returned to the public domain.
The new gem: British Baseball Data
The second message was from Mark Tobin, who has spent nearly 5 years trying to rebuild final league standings, play-off results, and much more for the post-World War II period of top-tier British baseball. His email said that he’s come to a stage where he feels that as many gaps as can be filled have probably been done so (or at least the investment is now dwarfing the possible returns). The finished work is not a complete record, but it contains information that is unique and very important.
Mark will be concentrating on other areas in the future, and the current British Baseball Data website will come off the internet. However, to ensure that a legacy is left of Mark’s wonderful research, Project Cobb has transferred a slightly reduced version of British Baseball Data onto its own archives, so please update your links. You can find the new index page here.
The British baseball publication Baseball Mercury was edited by baseball historian William Morgan from 1972 until 1989. Fifty-one issues were produced in all, and the publication’s scope covered both domestic and international baseball, as well as softball.