Tag Archives: Project COBB

British Baseball Hall of Fame 2019 Elections

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Four new members join the British Baseball Hall of Fame

The 2019 elections to the British Baseball Hall of Fame have introduced four new inductees, increasing the class to 38.

Ryan Bird, Jason Holowaty and Darrin Muller were inducted from the modern ballot, with Alan Asquith being elected by the historical vetting panel that was introduced in 2016.

Hall of Fame Chair Matt Smith commented: “I’m delighted to see four such worthy candidates joining our Hall of Fame, all with different stories to tell but sharing a true commitment to the game in Britain and excelling at what they did.

Ryan Bird and Alan Asquith had memorable playing careers in different eras, with Ryan representing the Richmond Flames and Herts Falcons and Alan being a pillar of the strong Humberside baseball community.

Jason Holowaty combined a playing career that brought four national championships with a long tenure of service to baseball at MLB and BaseballSoftballUK. As for Darrin Muller, for many years he has been one of the most widely recognised and respected representatives of British Baseball at home and abroad, both as a coach and particularly as an umpire.

The task of electing figures who represent the best of British baseball is both a difficult challenge and a hugely rewarding process.

There are so many players, coaches, umpires and officials who have left a mark on our game over the decades and, in contrast to the process Stateside, the full depth of their achievements is rarely packaged neatly through comprehensive statistics or biographical data. However, for us, this is part of the fun. The work that goes into researching potential candidates and writing their stories goes largely unseen but is, to us, as important as the final balloting process that determines who among that year’s list of candidates shine through the most.

Thanks to the Great Britain national team programme, we were able to honour the 2018 class at an event over the MLB London Series weekend back in June, and we will hopefully be able to do something similar in June 2020 for this year’s class. Beyond this, the contributions of Ryan, Jason, Darrin and Alan will be there for all to see on the BBHOF website as we continue to document and celebrate baseball’s rich history on these shores”.

Ryan Bird

Over eight seasons in British domestic play, South African-native Ryan Bird etched a place in the history books as one of British baseball’s greatest hitters. At the time of his retirement, Bird, whose career ran from 2008-2015, posted the highest career batting average (.508), on base percentage (.578) and slugging percentage (.822) in modern British baseball history. He was named the country’s most valuable batter three times (2008, 2009, 2013) and led the National Baseball League in RBI in 2013 and home runs in 2009. He was also recognised as the best fielding first basemen in 2012. All told, he tallied 15 HRs and 119 RBI over the course of 385 plate appearances for the Richmond Flames and Herts Falcons.

Jason Holowaty

Both on offence and defence, Jason Holowaty shined in a distinguished British playing career. He was a key player for four national championship teams – Richmond (2006), London Mets (2007, 2008) and Southern Nationals (2011). Off the field, Holowaty contributed to baseball in the UK and, more broadly, in Europe and Africa, as a key game development executive for Major League Baseball in the region from 2002 to 2016. He has also worked for BaseballSoftballUK in a game development capacity. A lifetime .423 hitter, Holowaty not only earned a batting title as a member of the Richmond Flames in 2006, but also nabbed a Gold Glove award as the best defensive second baseman for the London Mets the following season.

Darrin Muller

Darrin Muller has had a long-ranging and successful involvement with British baseball over many years. His accomplishments in particular include numerous successes as coach and then one of the most impressive umpiring careers of any British umpire. Darrin has umpired in more than 2250 games. They include 17 National Baseball Championships and 13 Youth National Baseball Championships, 445 International games, 11 ISST’s (International High School) European Championships, 4 Pony Baseball European Championships, 2 Pony World Series, 6 Little League European and African Nations Regionals, the 2016 Little League Junior World Series, 12 CEB European Tournaments and the 2009 IBAF World Cup.

Alan Asquith (Historic Committee)

In 1974, the leading British baseball journal of its day, Baseball Mercury, described Alan Asquith as “for years, the country’s leading pitcher.” Indeed, for more than a decade Asquith was a leading light in the Humberside area in particular and one of the best nationwide. In both 1966 and 1967 he received the award as the top pitcher in the Northern Division of the National League, but his 1968 season may have been his most rewarding. Asquith pitched his club, the Hull Aces, to a national title by winning both the semi-final match against the Liverpool Tigers, and the finals versus the Hull Royals. He allowed just a combined five hits while striking out 17 in those two games.

Further information

Full details of the four new members, and the other 34 individuals previously elected to the British Baseball Hall of Fame, can be found a: www.bbhof.org.uk

When Joe Maddon came to Milton Keynes

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The enthusiasm and attention created by MLB Battlegrounds last Tuesday has been wonderful to witness.

We’ll have to wait and see what else MLB UK has planned to build on the momentum created by that event, but in any case it was great that there was a direct immediate benefit of the event in GB youngsters getting the chance to pick the brains of Cliff Floyd and Carlos Pena.

This is far from the first time that MLB – and those based this end – has played a part in bringing players and coaches across the pond to share their wisdom.

When Joe Maddon runs out of the dug-out at the All-Star Game in Miami on Tuesday night, many Brits watching might not realise that 22 years ago he was in Milton Keynes helping British baseball coaches.

The MLB International Coaching Clinic

There were a range of initiatives run by MLB International in the 1990s, but one of the most important was the Coaching Clinic series. These ran from 1993 to 1997 (as far as I can tell) and offered a weekend indoor course in January with a panel of MLB organisation coaches (and some umpires).

There were some good names among them, including:

  • Jim Lefebvre in 1997, who had managed the Seattle Mariners and Chicago Cubs before then and went on to manage the Milwaukee Brewers in 1999
  • Buck Rodgers in 1994, who was the California Angels’ manager at the time
  • Bert Blyleven, also in 1994, who was part of the Angels’ coaching staff and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011.
  • Terry Collins in 1996, who was managing the Houston Astros at that point and is currently the New York Mets’ manager.

The 1995 edition

The 1995 three-day MLB International Coaching Clinic was held at Cranfield University, Milton Keynes, from Friday 20th January to Sunday 22nd.

It was led by then Oakland A’s pitching Coach Dave Duncan, the long-term right-hand man of Tony La Russa, and the group included the California Angels’ Minor League Director of Player Development.

That was Joe Maddon.

The November 1994 edition of the Brit-Ball publication proclaimed that “the 1995 clinic crew are probably the most experienced baseball people to come to Britain”. It further explained what would be in store for attendees:

“The clinic will cover all aspects of the game, catering for all coaches from beginner to advanced. This year’s clinic will be practical in nature. Based in a sports hall setting the emphasis will be on drills and practices, providing opportunities for our coaches to see the big leaguers at work, and learn through direct experience of their sessions.

Running alongside the main sessions will be a junior clinic aimed directly at junior players and coaches. This will provide first class coaching for the junior players, and the opportunity for junior coaches to observe other coaches in action”.

The February 1995 edition of Brit-Ball included a review of the event and interviews with the coaches. Understandably, the hot topic of conversation at the event was the ongoing MLB player strike, but plenty of other matters were discussed too.

When asked what the best advice he could give to managers and players starting out, Maddon replied: “If you could develop the ability to scout players then you can break players down to their grass roots, in terms of all their physical talents, and be able to correct any fundamentals”.

That sounds just as relevant to coaches today – if not even more so – than it was at the time.

Prescient British baseball minds

Joe Maddon has earned a reputation as a bright, innovative coach and someone who connects with his players. He clearly made a strong impression with the attendees in 1995 too.

The same Brit-Ball edition included a couple of letters from attendees of the event, including one from Dean Davidson of Leeds City Royals. Davidson described the event as “the best yet”, stating that all the speakers “were able to break the game down to a level where a complete novice could understand but there was enough information so that an experienced player/coach could go away knowing he had learnt something”.

But then went on to add:

“I would like to end by thanking all the clinicians involved, especially Joe Maddon, who I feel was the most comprehensive clinician we have had to date”.

Few could have guessed at the time that Maddon would go on to become the man to lead the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series in over 100 years, but I like to think that Dean Davidson’s comments showed that – even back then – Maddon’s exceptional qualities shone through.

Recent years

BaseballSoftballUK, British Baseball Federation and the Great Britain set-up have brought some Major Leaguers over during the off-season in more recent times.

Most notable was the 2012 European Big League Tour led by Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk, who was joined by fellow Netherlands player Roger Bernadina, Chris Dickerson and Jeremy Guthrie (who would go on to pitch in a World Series for the Kansas City Royals). GB players such as Michael Roth and Jake Esch have also spent time in the UK in recent off-seasons.

With MLB clearly keen to bring games across to London at some point, and the hope for more MLB UK events too, it would be great if these MLB promotion events (which are certainly beneficial to British baseball in themselves) are joined by more opportunities for British players and coaches to learn from MLB players and coaches.

Brit-Ball publications on Project COBB

Brit-Ball was a newsletter described as “The Official Voice of the British Baseball Federation” and was published between 1993 and 1998. All but one of the volumes of the newsletters have been scanned and are available to access on the Project COBB (Chronicling of British Baseball) website.

They are one of a range of brilliant materials and resources available. If browsing the materials inspires you to take an active interest in British baseball history and research, or if you have any materials you are willing to share, please get in touch by using the contact details on the Project COBB website.

British Baseball Hall of Fame 2014 inductees announced

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BBHoF_bgbOn the customary second Tuesday in October, the sixth annual class of new inductees into the British Baseball Hall of Fame recognizes three more of the game’s greats: Alan Smith, Cody Cain, and Josh Chetwynd.

Smith is the second most successful player in the British game’s history, as assessed by national titles, and he remains the holder of several modern top-tier pitching records. Off the field, he was a key administrator for the London Warriors, one of the country’s all-time best teams, and he provided instrumental support for Team GB’s silver medal at the 2007 European Championships.

Cain was one of the truly great two-way players in modern British baseball history and featured consistently among the leaders of pitching and batting statistical categories throughout his time in the game. His 18-strike-out game in 2004 is still a modern record, and his 0.00 earned-run average in 1993 remains an unmatched top-tier feat.

Chetwynd’s contribution to the sport in Britain has comprised a unique mix: prominent media roles; deep involvement in initiatives to grow the game and chronicle its history; and consistent success as a player, both domestically and internationally. Across the first decade of wood-bat baseball in the modern era (2001-2010), Chetwynd not only had the highest batting average (.440) but was also the hardest player to strike out.

To see full biographies of the three 2014 inductees as well as the 22 other individuals enshrined in the British Baseball Hall of Fame, please visit: http://www.bbhof.org.uk/

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On a personal note, having taken on the role of Secretary for the BBHoF this year I’ve gained an even greater appreciation for the amount of thought that goes into the voting process.

In Major League Baseball the Hall of Fame process is long-established and, aside from the recent ‘steroid era’ difficulties, is relatively straight forward. There are comprehensive records for every game, from stats to game reports to radio and TV footage. There is an overwhelming abundance of material and precedent to refer to as part of differentiating someone from being a person who had made a very good contribution to someone who made an exceptional contribution.

We don’t have that luxury with British Baseball. The (known) records can be patchy and even where we do have good records there is not always as much evidence as you’d like to fully assess the varying standard of play among teams, leagues and years. This year’s three inductees are from what you might call the recent era and certainly the more prevalent records around their contributions on and off the field can help to reassure a voter of their stance.

However even just a quick glance at the previous inductees will show that participants from different eras can be assessed and recognised, from a 1930s pitcher like Lefty Wilson to a Brad Thompson whose British Baseball playing days spanned from the late 1970s to 2003.

Like any Hall of Fame, debate is always part of the fun as we will all see things slightly differently. Part of the purpose of the British Baseball Hall of Fame is to generate further interest in the history of the sport on these shores so that if there are potential worthy Hall of Fame candidates out there, records can be hunted down and compiled not just for potential voters but for anyone interested in the British game.

The Hall of Fame will never tell the whole story of British Baseball, but it will tell some of them – not least now the stories of Smith, Cain and Chetwynd – and will hopefully be another incentive to encourage people to track down even more, whether to endorse a Hall of Fame candidacy, to fill in a few blanks in the record books, or to find an interesting, amusing or touching tale to add to the collective British Baseball memory bank.

If you’d like to get involved, please visit the British Baseball Hall of Fame website alongside the Project COBB website for further details.

One from the Present; One from the Past — A consolidated, semi-regular column

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I can derive great joy from uncovering details of an important but long-forgotten British baseball clash in a newspaper library. The enjoyment has much to do with the respect I have for the history of baseball. This is an appreciation that extends to other sports. As an example of this, I have my cycling computer set to kilometres instead of miles, not to cheer myself up by the greater rate with which the digits tick over, but to pay a small kind of homage to the land of all things metric and so many great two-wheelers, including the late Laurent Fignon. His gruelling battle with — and eventual 8-second loss to — Greg Lemond in the 1989 Tour de France is probably a singularly important factor in the development of my love for sport. (Eight seconds is an infinitesimal amount in the context of a 3-week stage race; if the action was condensed into a 10-second dash, the cyclists would not have been split by the naked eye or by a photograph).

I also get excited by baseball that happens in front of me, in three dimensions, using the full spectrum of colour and the entire range of audible sounds. Only last Sunday, instinct lifted me from my seat (and sent my head on a treacherous journey into the internal spidery mechanism of my ground-rooted fishing umbrella) when the Harlow Nationals’ first baseman Jarrod Pretorius threw himself over the fencing marking the edge of foul territory — his intended domain — and came up with the ball for the out.

If you tried to weigh up these two types of enjoyment using a pair of scales, the measuring aid would vapourise out of the space-time continuum because they are incompatible as far as making comparisons is concerned.

In the same way, I gained orthogonal enjoyment from writing two previous BaseballGB columns, one on current reflections (Roundshaw Hop) and the other featuring historical snippets (the Cobbettes). If, with your replacement set of scales, you tried to make another comparison of enjoyment levels here, you’d again find yourself heading out to the hardware store with your hand in your pocket.

Fortunately, I don’t need to make a choice between the two areas. Project COBB (the Project for the Chronicling of British Baseball) has the dual purpose of preserving details of baseball today and restoring the happenings from yesteryear. And my new semi-regular column on BaseballGB will consolidate the themes of my two previous serials in alternating between the current and the realms of history: One from the Present; One from the Past.

Collection of 1963-1966 British baseball memorabilia kindly donated to Project COBB by Jon Prescott

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Yesterday’s mail contained a wonderfully generous donation to Project COBB from Jon Prescott, who umpired many British baseball games during the years after World War II when the sport was slowly regaining its feet. The donation comprised a number of programmes and other artefacts dating from 1963 to 1966. I have just finished adding these 1963-Stretford-Saints-progritems to the Project COBB online archives so that others can benefit from Jon’s generosity:

To view other artefacts from the 1960s held by Project COBB, click here.

    What about the Villa? by Joe Gray

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    What about the Villa? Forgotten figures from Britain’s pro baseball league of 1890 by Joe Gray (Fineleaf, 2010), 204 pages

    watvHLThere is no getting away from the fact that most people in Britain share a hard-headed view of baseball.  They see it as a game played solely by Americans and of little relevance to the UK’s sporting past or present, aside from the idea that ‘we invented it and called it rounders’.

    The existence of a professional baseball league in Britain in 1890 would come as a great surprise to those doubters.  Indeed, it would probably be a surprise to some British baseball fans too.    

    ‘What about the Villa?’ chronicles this fascinating chapter in British baseball and sporting history.  It is the first book by Joe Gray, founder of the Project for the Chronicling of British Baseball (Project Cobb).  Joe is also a valued contributor to BaseballGB, but no personal bias is needed to admire the achievement of producing this book and to enjoy its contents.

    The book covers all aspects of the league in impressive detail.  This begins with a useful guide to how baseball was played in 1890 and goes on to investigate the sport’s early links with Britain, how a professional league came to be formed in 1890, who was involved in the league, how the competition played out and the league’s legacy.  Continue reading →

    Bumper update of Project Cobb’s digital archives adds a dozen programmes and a leaflet

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    1980_programmeThe latest update of Project Cobb’s digital archives has just taken place, with the additions comprising a dozen old programmes and a leaflet. The years of origin of these various items span a range between 1953 and 1997, which illustrates Project Cobb’s dual mission of restoring the historical record of the game’s more distant eras on British shores while not neglecting the need to ensure that more recent years of play are well chronicled.

    Many of these were scanned from items donated to Project Cobb by Brad Thompson (of the Golders Green Sox and London Warriors), who has been exceedingly generous in helping Project Cobb, after initially being kindly put in touch by Michael Osborn.

    Continue reading →