- Nine Innings for the King: The Day Wartime London Stopped for Baseball, July 4, 1918 by Jim Leeke
If ever a book on any subject was aptly-named, Nine Innings for the King: The Day Wartime London Stopped for Baseball, July 4, 1918, just might be it. This carefully researched, colorfully written history recounts the details surrounding an exhibition ballgame between American soldiers and sailors that took place at London’s Stamford Bridge Football Grounds on Independence Day during the First World War. Those in attendance included a rainbow of British royals and other VIPs, starting with King George V, Queen Mary, and Winston Churchill, as well as thousands of soldiers and civilians. Though mostly forgotten a century later, author Jim Leeke underscores the game’s significance by noting that it “helped solidify the British-American alliance that still endures” (2) and by boldly asking, “What other sporting event has made a contribution half so vital to the national interests of the United States?” (2).
Extending this further, the game serves to mirror the evolution of British-American relations. After all, less than a century- and-a-half earlier, the American colonies battled their British overseers to secure their independence. Certainly, the July 4 holiday celebrates their triumph. But now the two nations were allies. (Similarly, the US and Japan were at war during the first half of the 1940s, but by the new century the world had changed, and Japanese ballplayers were being welcomed into the major leagues and cheered by American fans.) In 1918, the Americans and Brits were united against a common enemy: the dastardly Hun. So, notwithstanding the inning-by-inning coverage or the final score, which Leeke reports with clear-eyed precision, this King’s Game served as a symbolic union between the two nations. The author observes that, on the day of the game, “The sun came up and the flags rose with it, Union Jack and Old Glory fluttering together over the British capital. Soldiers and sailors streamed into town on trains and lorries, Londoners flooded the streets, everybody cheerful on this gorgeous English summer day (as) the King’s Game came slowly to life” (135). The author quickly adds, “The whole idea was about as crazy as polo in Brooklyn. Imagine, the king of England and tens of thousands of his loyal subjects, all turning out to cheer a couple of dozen Yank soldiers and sailors batting a horsehide ball around a diamond wedged onto what the Britishers called a football ground” (135).
Given that the game was organized and played a century ago, Leeke was unable to secure first-person interviews with anyone connected to the contest. Instead, he loads the book with quotes from primary sources, most notably [End Page 191] dozens of accounts published in newspapers both American (from the Albany Journal and Atlanta Constitution to the Wilkes-Barre Sunday Independent and Youngstown Vindicator) and foreign (including periodicals from as far away as Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania). The result is a detailed portrait of the range of war-connected, baseball-related events that preceded the game. For example, big leaguers were abandoning the sport to go abroad and represent their country in the war effort or were employed in shipyards while Canadian soldiers fighting in Europe were playing ball prior to the arrival of the Americans. Military teams were formed in the US (the Wild Waves, a Charlestown Navy Yard nine assembled by Jack Barry) and abroad (the Anglo-American Baseball League, an all-military circuit consisting of four American and four Canadian teams).
However, the core of Nine Innings for the King highlights the whys, hows, and whos of the title game: why it was organized; how it was organized; and who was involved both on and off the field. Familiar and not-so-familiar names are scattered throughout: Arlie Latham, the ex-big leaguer who was the contest’s sole umpire; hurlers Ed Lafitte and future Hall of Famer Herb Pennock, who squared off on the...