Summary
An exploration of the steps leading to the formation of a British pro baseball league in 1890 (adapted from a chapter in What about the Villa?).
Access the PDF
Click here
Please leave comments on the article below.
We’re back! The all-singing, all-dancing half time spectacular that is the All Star Game is over and we embark on a whole new half-season.
For my Brewers that means celebrating our first ever All Star MVP – Prince Fielder, as well as appearances from Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun, making the Brewers the most-represented team on the National League elected starting roster. Continue reading
Three days never feels like quite such a long time as it does when those three days are the All-Star Break.Â
MLB returns from its midsummer break for fourteen teams tonight, with the rest getting back to it on Friday.
There are no early games scheduled for Thursday, but there is one pre-midnight start on Friday.Â
As is often the case, Wrigley Field is the venue for live baseball on a British Friday evening. The Chicago Cubs are hosting the Florida Marlins, with Ricky Nolasco and Ryan Dempster scheduled to be the starting pitchers. First pitch is set for 19.20 BST and the game is being shown live on ESPN America.
As the games get going again, make a point of checking out the Midterm report content on MLB.com if you are a relative newcomer to MLB, haven’t been able to devote as much attention as you’d like during the first half or just want plenty of great baseball coverage to read and watch.Â
There are some excellent features on the official site, with each team’s beat-writer providing a very useful column for their club to provide a comprehensive overview of what’s happened so far and what may be around the corner.
The MK Bucks’ Twitter feed advised me not to “read the A’s one, just ignore it and hope it goes awayâ€! Sadly the warning reached me too late. Thursday evening’s news that Oakland’s starter Brett Anderson has undergone Tommy John surgery didn’t improve my mood much either.
There’s always next year for the A’s, and I’m sure there will be plenty of other great storylines to follow the rest of the way.
Last weekend in British Baseball was dominated by the annual London Tournament.Â
The National Baseball League’s Croydon Pirates came out on top at their home event, defeating the ‘Pride of the North’ Liverpool Trojans in the final by a score of 9-4.
Rob Jones has provided a full report on the final at the BBF website, combining it with the news reported here by Joe Gray that Croydon’s field has been re-named in honour of their manager Dave Ward. The whole event was a great way to celebrate the Pirates’ thirtieth anniversary and, judging by reports, all fifteen teams enjoyed their weekend of baseball.
The Liverpool Trojans took plenty of photos over the weekend and they can be found on the Photo Galleries section on their website, while the Birmingham Maple Leafs have added 194 to the collection on their Facebook page. You can also take a peak there at some potential designs for the Maple Leafs’ new uniform courtesy of Hawk Sport.
And in the tournament that kept on giving, a chance meeting in the burger-van queue at the London Tournament allowed Joe Gray to add the story of the Birmingham Maple Leafs’ name to the Project COBB archive. If you can add any more to the list, do get in contact with Joe.
Mets and Blazers take one win apiece, Archers and Bisons get victories as well
While most teams not involved in the London Tournament took the opportunity to rest – a British version of the All-Star Break, perhaps – there was some league action in both the National Baseball League and in Double-AA.
In the top-tier, the London Mets (8-5) and Bracknell Blazers (5-7) split a double-header at the former’s Finsbury Park field. The Mets took the opener 14-7, but their hopes of a sweep were thwarted in the second game as the Blazers bounced back to win 7-4.
The Essex Archers (6-7) hit the target against the Brentwood Stags (6-8). The battle of Essex ended 15-4 in the Archers’ favour and saw them leap over the Stags into second place in the Pool A standings. Meanwhile the Thames Valley Bisons (8-4) secured a 10-8 victory over the Richmond Dragons (2-10) to lift them within two games of the Pool-leading Guidlford Maverick, with two games in hand.
Big games in NBL and Single-A
The highlights of this Sunday’s fixture list come from the NBL and Single-A, where the top two teams in the respective Pools at each level are scheduled to meet.
In the NBL, the Richmond Flames finally took sole possession of top spot in Pool A following their win against the Southampton Mustangs on 3 July. Their credentials for staying there face a stern test on Sunday as they host the Pool B-leading Lakenheath Diamondbacks.Â
The D-Backs defeated the Essex Arrows last time out for their tenth win on the spin and will be looking to make it a dozen in the first meeting with the Flames this year. The Mustangs will be hoping Lakenheath succeed and that they can earn two victories on the road against the Bracknell Blazers to regain first place straight away.
While the Flames and Diamondbacks meet in the NBL, ‘The Big One’ finally takes place in Single-A on Sunday. Southampton Mustangs II (10-0) and Cambridge Royals (8-0) were scheduled to meet in Southampton on 12 June; however the game was postponed due to heavy rain so the much-anticipated clash between the two unbeaten teams couldn’t take place.Â
Undeterred, both teams have remained unbeaten since that point so their first meeting of the season will still decide which of the top teams in Single-A is handed their first loss of the year, and which is likely to go on and have a perfect regular season. The game will take place on the Royals’ field at Coldham’s Common in Cambridge, with first pitch set for midday.
AAA: Trojans and Badgers aim to keep on winning
The Liverpool Trojans may have lost out in the London Tournament final, but they showed their strength and skill over the weekend and still have a great chance at recording an unbeaten regular season in the AAA-North. They put their 11-0 record on the line in the latest instalment of their rivalry with the Manchester A’s.
In the AAA-South, the Bristol Badgers have a 5-game lead in the standings going into their double-header at home against the Oxford Kings. The Kings are in third place currently, with the second (Essex Redbacks) and fourth (London Metros) placed teams meeting for two games this weekend.
AA: Latin Boys v Sidewinders, Bucks v Rebels, and the Robots of Doom are on tour
In the AA-South, the top match-up of the weekend pits the Pool-A leading Latin Boys against the Sidewinders, who have only recently been usurped in the top spot in Pool B by the Guildford Mavericks. The Mavericks look to keep hold of, and possibly extend, their half-game lead over the Sidewinders as they travel to Kent for two games against the Mariners.
In the Midlands, there’s a great game in prospect in Milton Keynes as the Pool-leading Bucks host the Nottingham Rebels. The Rebels are on a five-game winning streak and it was in the first game of that sequence that Nottingham inflicted the only defeat of the Bucks’ season so far.
Finally in the North, the Sheffield Bladerunners travel to Hull to take on the Humber Pilots, while the Oldham North Stars face the Manchester Torrent. The Pool-leading Bolton Robots of Doom will be representing British baseball in the Netherlands as they take part in the Birds International Tournament.
This is a quick post to direct Project COBB fans to some new bits and pieces I have added to the national champions archive. If you cast your eyes down the navigation panel on the left of the webpage you’ll come to a collection of links under the heading “Infographics”. This is a growing set of graphics that I am publishing to help make it easier to interpret the information contained in the archive.
“Infographics” might be a bit too fancy a term for the various tables of successful teams (those with most titles and most finals appearances, as well as those who defended their title), but I am quite pleased with the scatterplot showing latitudes of champions over time. I have added a 50-year moving average “trend line” to try to illustrate how the games power has shifted as the years have passed. This is a project I had been putting off (or “an idea I had been saving” might be more positive) for over 5 years, but I now have the right place to publish it.
Welcome to our weekly round-up of the BaseballGB Fantasy League competition. This is a mixed Head-2-Head league involving BGB writers and readers.
There are fourteen teams who pair up in different combinations each week, making for seven match-ups in any given week. The teams battle over twelve statistical categories, gaining one point for each category they win.
All the points are carried over into the season league table at the end of the weekly match-ups. The top six teams with the most points at the end of the fantasy season will go on to the playoffs during the last three weeks of September.
| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| stevenston angels | 34 | 10 | 29 | 4 | 0.296 | 0.848 | 3 | 0 | 40 | 1 | 4.37 | 1.17 | 1 |
| Weston-Super-Sox | 32 | 10 | 37 | 7 | 0.309 | 0.943 | 5 | 3 | 57 | 2 | 4.2 | 1.13 | 10 |
| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| Pretzel Vendors | 42 | 11 | 33 | 7 | 0.309 | 0.869 | 5 | 3 | 60 | 3 | 2.48 | 1.14 | 9 |
| daebhid2 | 26 | 7 | 30 | 8 | 0.256 | 0.73 | 1 | 0 | 28 | 2 | 2.33 | 0.81 | 3 |
The 2011 MLB All-Star Game is being broadcast in the UK on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra and ESPN America, with coverage beginning at 1 a.m in the early hours of Wednesday morning UK time.
Many of the headlines surrounding the game have focused on the players that will not be there.Â
Sixteen players have withdrawn so far and there’s no denying that the event won’t be quite the same without the likes of Jose Reyes, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and Derek Jeter taking to the field and CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Cole Hamels and Mariano Rivera taking to the mound.
But a quick peek at the starting lineups is enough to allay any fears that it’s an All-Star game in name alone. Continue reading
Many words were used to described Derek Jeter’s performance on Saturday. Most of them were attempting to get across a feeling of amazement.Â
It was “unbelievable†and “astonishingâ€. A“fairytale†and then “more than a fairytaleâ€, a “Hollywood script†and then “something even Hollywood wouldn’t dare scriptâ€.
Jeter started the day with a single to record his 2,999th career hit in the Majors, then made it to 3,000 on a home run before finishing the day 5-for-5, with his final hit driving in what became the game-winning run. It was an incredible day.
But it wasn’t “unbelievable†to me, or any of the other similar descriptions attached to it. It was exactly the sort of thing you could believe Jeter would do; the sort of thing he’s done time and again throughout his career.
While watching the game live on ESPN America, part-way through his historic at-bat I was thinking to myself: “I bet he hits a home run hereâ€. I wasn’t alone. The YES Network announcers stated later in their broadcast that a member of their team had done the same thing. During the Braves-Phillies game a little later in the afternoon, FOX announcer Kenny Albert said that his colleague Eric Karros had called it too.
A precedent had already been set for doing it. Wade Boggs got his 3,000th hit with a home run, coincidentally in the uniform of the team that Jeter got his 3,000th hit against (the Tampa Bay Rays). Continue reading
Dave Ward receives temporary plaque during field naming ceremony for old Diamond 1 at Roundshaw
It was a great weekend for long-time Croydon Pirates GM Dave Ward. His first team showed a dramatic turn-around in form to claim back the London Tournament title after a wait of several years, and he was surprised by a ceremony on Saturday afternoon in which the enclosed diamond at Roundshaw was named Dave Ward Field (thanks must go to former first-team Pirates catcher Andy Kulina for his ability to cut through the often treacherous, swampy ground that is local council politics, and get this on the Sutton agenda).
The move is broadly supported by the local council but must now go through ratification at the next meeting of the relevant committee. However, it is hoped by all that this is nothing more than a formality. And, in any case, whatever the outcome, the ground will from now on be known as Dave Ward Field among the British baseball community.
The Pirates win. Left to right: Conor Riffle (tournament coach), Dave Ward (general manager), Tim Ssali (pitcher/shortstop), and Mark Goater (club helper).
There is much to play for as we head into the All-Star break, but one man has more to gain than most.
Derek Jeter’s quest for 3,000 career hits might have already been over had Friday night’s game between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays not been postponed due to rain.Â
Jeter only needs two more hits to hit the big 3,000 and the Yankees’ two remaining games before the All-Star break are being played at 1.05 p.m. local time.Â
That makes for an 18.05 BST start and both games will be broadcast live in the UK: Saturday’s game on ESPN America and Sunday’s on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra.
Those Rays-Yankees encounters are just two of an exciting group of MLB games that are scheduled to start before midnight UK time this weekend.
Saturday 9 July
18.05. Tampa Bay at NY Yankees (Price – Burnett) *ESPN America
21.10. Minnesota at Chicago White Sox (Duensing – Buehrle)
21.10. San Diego at LA Dodgers (Harang – De La Rosa)
21.10. Atlanta at Philadelphia (Hanson – Lee) *ESPN America
The hype surrounding the Jeter storyline shouldn’t overshadow the fact that this is an important series for the two AL East teams. David Price and A.J. Burnett were due to take the mound on Friday and will pitch on an extra day of rest.Â
It’s no surprise that ESPN America has chosen to broadcast the Braves-Phillies game. They are the top two teams in the NL East and a pitching match-up between Tommy Hanson and Cliff Lee is a genuine headline act. However, fans with an MLB.com subscription – not to mention those with an allegiance to either team – may choose to look in on the Padres-Dodgers game as L.A. will have the exciting young right-hander Rubby De La Rosa on the mound. Continue reading