Who’s Who in England Team
Ken Robinson—Captain, Oldham Greyhounds, 1937, and present season. Outstanding first baseman. Heads England's batting averages. Boxer. Canadian Golden Gloves Champion.
Kenneth Walsh Robinson (1911–1987). It was boxing that brought Ken Robinson to England. Robinson was born in Maxville, Ontario, in 1911 and learned his boxing at the Kingston YMCA. He came to fame as a boxer while serving in the Royal Canadian Signal Corps at Camp Borden, Barrie, Ontario, becoming the 1933 Ontario Golden Groves champion in the middleweight division. While with the Signallers, he also played football. Although not certain, it is likely that he honed his baseball skills in the Signal Corps, too. He came to England in 1935 to box professionally, starting his career in Liverpool.[i]
While in Liverpool, Robinson signed up for the Littlewoods baseball team for the 1935 season in the NBA’s Liverpool Amateur League, forerunner of the professional North of England League. This makes him second only to Sid Bissett in terms of members of the 1938 England team starting their baseball careers in England. When the NBA announced its professional North of England League for the 1935 season, Robinson initially signed up for the team that became known as the Liverpool Giants; however, by the time the league’s inaugural season got underway, he made the move to Manchester and turned out for the Belle Vue Tigers as player–coach. Alas, the season went badly for Belle Vue, who were relegated to the league’s second division at season’s end.[ii]
The 1937 season saw a reversal of fortune for Robinson, as he led his new team, the Oldham Greyhounds, to victory in the North of England League. Oldham also made it all the way to the semi-finals of the NBA Challenge Cup, only to come up against Hull and its ace pitcher American Max ‘Lefty’ Wilson, who fanned 17 Oldham players in a shutout game.[iii]
The 1938 season in what was now the combined semi-pro Yorkshire–Lancashire League opened badly for the Greyhounds, but all that changed when ace hurler Ross Kendrick, unemployed following the collapse of the International Baseball League, signed for the team. He took them all the way to an NBA Challenge Cup final meeting with the Rochdale Greys. After a 15-inning battle, in a game for the ages, Oldham succumbed to the only run of the game. By the last two weeks of the 1938 season, Robinson had the top batting average of any player in the Yorkshire–Lancashire League (.477).[iv]
In Robinson’s third and final season as Oldham captain and coach, he was joined in the team by two of his 1938 England teammates, battery mates Jerry Strong and Snooker Ruvinsky. Alas, almost everything went wrong for the Greyhounds in the 1939 season, exacerbated by the departure of Strong before the season’s end for what was said to be ‘business reasons’. Oldham finished third from bottom in the league, its worst performance.[v] Ken Robinson’s career in the English baseball leagues was at an end.
In early 1940, Robinson returned with his family to Canada and rejoined the Signal Corps. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant and even served for a period as Sports Officer at his old stomping ground of Camp Bowden. He ended the war teaching at the Royal Military College. In 1976, he was inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame. He died in Ontario in 1997.[vi]
Robinson was one of the finest athletes in the 1930s English leagues—while he was in England, he not only boxed and played baseball but also played rugby, lacrosse, and ice hockey—and a steady and dependable captain and coach. Although not as dazzling a talent as Kendrick and Strong, or as big a personality as Ruvinsky and McNeil, he nevertheless represented a completely dependable infield player, a rock that McNeil could build a team on.
[i] Ken Robinson’s biographical information comes from his obituary: ‘Kenneth Walsh Robinson’, Kingston Whig-Standard, 7 July 1987. Boxing for Signallers, Camp Borden, 1933 Ontario champion: ‘World of Sport’, Kingston Whig-Standard, 31 August 1934. Turning professional in England: ‘Robinson Making a Fine Impression’, Kingston Whig-Standard, 2 April 1934.
[ii] Robinson in Littlewoods team: ‘Baseball Budget’, Liverpool Echo, 24 August 1935; signed to Liverpool [Giants]: ‘A New Sporting Venture: Professional Baseball For Liverpool’, Liverpool Echo, 21 December 1935; Coach for Belle Vue Tigers:’Baseball’, Liverpool Daily Post, 17 August 1936; Belle Vue relegated: ’Baseball’, Liverpool Daily Post, 17 August 1936.
[iii] ‘Baseball: Hull in Final’, Hull Daily Mail, 4 August 1938.
[iv] Oldham’s cup run: Josh Chetwynd, ‘Ross Kendrick’, ed. Joe Grey, ‘Nine Aces and a Joker’ (Ross-on-Wye: Fineleaf Books, 2012), 32—33. Robinson’s 1938 batting average: ‘Baseball Notes’, Hull Daily Mail, 13 August 1938.
[v] Ruvinsky and Strong in Oldham team: ‘Baseball: Hull Well Beaten at Oldham’, Hull Daily Mail, 27 May 1939. Third from bottom: ‘Baseball’, Rochdale Observer, 5 August 1939.
[vi] See Note i, above, first reference.