Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

83 Regrettably, it seems not to have been able to halt the decline of the sport in New York. In Wickets in the West , Robert Fitzgerald’s account of the 1872 tour, he summed up the situation neatly by saying that ‘cricket is not a popular game in New York. It has a struggle for existence, and is indebted for life to a few determined Englishmen.’ In Philadelphia, on the other hand, interest was considerably stimulated by Willsher’s visit, and it could be considered both a sporting and financial success. Indeed, each of the three major clubs made a net profit from the two matches of $850. It was also Pennsylvania’s first sight of ‘high’ bowling, and there is no doubt that Edgar’s methods had a real influence on the development of the game in the region, culminating in the heyday of Bart King at the turn of the century. King has himself been credited with the development of swing bowling, using the idea of swerve so beloved of baseball pitchers. Thus the tour contributed not only to the transatlantic exchange of ideas, but also ultimately to the transfer of skills between sports. Baseball may eventually have taken hold even in Philadelphia, but Willsher’s legacy remains to this day. Cricket on the Brain Baseball under way at the Union Baseball Ground in Brooklyn, New York in 1865. Willsher’s men watched a match from the pagoda on the left at the start of their tour and played baseball here at its end.