Bart King facts for kids
King in around 1905
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name |
John Barton King
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | October 19, 1873 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | October 17, 1965 (aged 91) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-hand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Bowler | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1893–1912 | Gentlemen of Philadelphia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1894 | G.S. Patterson XI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FC debut | September 29, 1893 Gentlemen of Philadelphia v Australians | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last FC | October 4, 1912 Gentlemen of Philadelphia v Australians | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Source: CricketArchive, August 18, 2007
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
John Barton "Bart" King (born October 19, 1873 – died October 17, 1965) was a famous American cricketer. He played in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bart King was a key player for the Philadelphian cricket team, which was very strong before World War I.
Many cricketers then were wealthy "gentlemen" who didn't need jobs. Bart King came from a middle-class family. His teammates helped him get a job so he could focus on cricket. Bart King was a great batsman and an even better bowler. He set many records in North America. In 1908, he was the top bowler in England, beating the best players from England and Australia.
King was the main bowler for his team when they visited England in 1897, 1903, and 1908. He got batsmen out with his special "angler" delivery. He also helped develop swing bowling, a skill where the ball moves sideways in the air. Sir Pelham Warner called Bart King "one of the finest bowlers of all time." Donald Bradman, another cricket legend, said he was "America's greatest cricketing son."
Contents
Bart King's Early Life and Personality
King was born in Philadelphia on October 19, 1873. When he was young, he worked in the linen business, which was his family's trade. Later, his father let him leave to work in insurance. Bart King was not from the rich families of Philadelphia who produced many top cricketers. People believe his insurance job was set up by his wealthy teammates so he could keep playing cricket.
In 1913, King married Fannie Lockhart. They were married for 50 years. Fannie passed away in 1963, and Bart King died in 1965 in Philadelphia, just two days before his 92nd birthday.
Many people who knew Bart King thought he was a very friendly person. He was known for his jokes and stories. He would even tease his opponents or question umpires, but always in a way that made everyone laugh. At a dinner during his last trip to England, he reportedly spoke for 90 minutes, making everyone laugh the whole time. He told unbelievable stories with such a serious face that people didn't know if he was joking or telling the truth.
Bart King's Cricket Career
Like many young American men of his time, Bart King first played baseball. He started playing club cricket at the Tioga Cricket Club in 1888, when he was 15. He began as a batsman. Tioga was a smaller cricket club in Philadelphia. In 1889, he was tried as a bowler because of his strong build. That year, he took 37 wickets for only 99 runs for his club.
King played for Tioga until 1896. Then, he joined the Belmont Cricket Club. While playing for Belmont, King joined the Philadelphian cricket team for three tours of England. His best performances happened during these tours with the top American team.
Australia Plays in Philadelphia
In 1893, the Australian team visited Philadelphia. They were on their way home after a long tour of England. The Australian team was strong but tired. They decided to play against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia in a three-day match starting September 29.
The game was played on a small field at Belmont Cricket Club. The grass was rough, and the ball moved very fast. The Australian team dropped many catches and struggled with the short boundary. This allowed the Philadelphians to score a huge total of 525 runs. King batted last, scoring 36 runs.
When the Australians batted, they hoped to recover from their trip. However, they had trouble with Bart King's developing swing bowling. They were all out for 199 runs, with King taking 5 wickets for 78 runs. The Australians had to bat again (called a follow-on) and were all out for 268. The Gentlemen of Philadelphia won by an innings and 68 runs.
The cricket world was amazed that an American city's team could beat the strong Australian team. The Australians won the next match, but their captain, Jack Blackham, told the Americans, "You have better players here than we have been led to believe. They class with England's best."
Touring England in 1897
King won the Child's Bowling Cup, a top award in American cricket, for the first time in 1896. He then joined the Philadelphian team's tour of England in 1897. This tour was very ambitious. The Americans didn't expect to win many matches. Previous tours had been against less competitive English amateur teams.
The 1897 tour began on June 7 and ended in late July. It included 15 matches against top county cricket teams, university teams, and other clubs. Many English teams didn't use their best players at first.
However, English fans became interested when Bart King and the Philadelphians played the full Sussex team on June 17. King showed his batting skill by scoring well. Then, he took 7 wickets for only 13 runs, helping Philadelphia bowl out Sussex for just 46 runs in under an hour. King took 6 more wickets in Sussex's second innings, leading the Philadelphians to win by 8 wickets.
Despite King's great performance, the Americans didn't do well overall. They won only two of their 15 matches, losing nine and drawing four. Their only other win was against Warwickshire. In that match, King took 5 wickets for 95 runs and 7 wickets for 72 runs, and he scored 46 runs.
According to Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, King was the best bowler on the American team. He bowled more than anyone else, taking 72 wickets. He also scored 441 runs as a batsman. After the 1897 tour, many English counties wanted King to play for them. One county even offered to arrange a marriage for him with a wealthy widow! But King returned to the United States and continued to play very well.
Touring England in 1903
The Philadelphian team went back to England in 1903. This was King's most successful tour. He played in 13 of the 15 matches. In his first match, he took 5 wickets and 4 wickets. He followed that with 8 wickets in the first innings against Oxford University. He also took 7 wickets against a strong MCC team. Then came the match against Lancashire.
In Lancashire's first innings, King took 5 wickets for 46 runs. In Lancashire's second innings, King was amazing. With a strong wind helping him, he took 5 wickets for 7 runs in just 3 overs! He got two batsmen out with perfect yorkers (balls that hit the base of the stumps). He then bowled out two more batsmen and knocked a stump out of the ground. After this, King had to rest. He later returned to take 4 more wickets, ending the innings with 9 wickets for 62 runs. The Philadelphians won the next morning.
Against Surrey on August 6, King was again unstoppable. This was considered his best ever performance. He scored 98 runs in the Philadelphian's first innings. Then he took 3 wickets. In the second innings, he scored 113 runs without being out, and took 3 more wickets. Surrey lost the match. King was so tired after this game that he fell asleep during a speech at a banquet!
Touring England in 1908
King toured England with the Philadelphians for a third time in 1908. This tour included both major and minor matches. The first match was against South Wales. The Philadelphians won, with King and Ranji Hordern taking all 20 wickets of the Welsh team.
The first-class matches then began. The Philadelphians won against Worcestershire, again with Hordern and King taking most of the wickets. This continued throughout the tour. In the first-class matches King played, the Philadelphians won four and lost six. Even though he was 35 years old, King had amazing bowling numbers. He had the best bowling average for the entire 1908 English cricket season at 11.01 runs per wicket. This record was not beaten until 1958.
Later Cricket Years
King's cricket career didn't end with his last major match. He kept playing club games in Philadelphia and other matches across North America. He holds the bowling record against Canada. In 1906, on a rainy day in Philadelphia, King took 8 wickets for only 17 runs against Canada. During this time, he focused on club cricket in Philadelphia, winning the city's batting award three times and the bowling award four times.
King played his last two international matches in 1912 against Australia. He was almost 40 years old, but his performances were still excellent. In the first match, he took 9 wickets for 78 runs, helping Philadelphia win by 2 runs. In the second match, Australia won, but King still took 8 wickets for 74 runs.
After the 1912 season, King joined the Philadelphia Cricket Club. He continued to play competitive cricket for another four years, even though he was well over 40. His 27-year career ended on July 20, 1916. In his final season, his batting average was still very good at 43.33.
Bart King's Death
King passed away at a nursing home in his hometown of Philadelphia in 1965. He died two days before his 92nd birthday. The Times newspaper in the UK published an obituary for him. It quoted Plum Warner saying: "Had he been an Englishman or an Australian, he would have been even more famous than he was."
Achievements and Legacy
Even though King was mainly a bowler, he was also a very good batsman. In 1905, he set a North American batting record by scoring 315 runs. The next year, he scored 344 runs without being out, a North American batting record that still stands today. He scored 39 centuries (scores of 100 or more runs) in his North American career. He also scored over 1,000 runs in six seasons.
King took over 100 wickets in eight seasons. In four of those seasons, he achieved a "double" by scoring over 1,000 runs and taking over 100 wickets. In his whole career, he scored 19,808 runs and took 2,088 wickets. He took all 10 wickets in an innings three times. He also took 9 wickets in an innings five times. Once, in 1909, he took 10 wickets in one innings and then a hat-trick (three wickets in three balls) in the next innings!
There's a famous story about King trying to copy a baseball pitcher named Rube Waddell. The story says King sent all his fielders (players in the field) back to the clubhouse. He then finished the opponent's innings all by himself. Some versions say he called one fielder back to pick up the bails (small pieces of wood on top of the stumps) that flew off after he bowled his special "angler" ball.
However, the captain of the opposing team later said the story wasn't quite true. He claimed that when he batted, King had four balls left in his over. He hit the first ball, but since there was no fielder, it went almost to the boundary. King had to chase it, and they ran six runs. The captain also claimed to be the only batsman to hit four sixes in a row off King. But he still praised King's ability to tell a good story!
Because of his amazing performances and fame, King was made an honorary member of the Incogniti Cricket Club in 1908. He also became an honorary life member of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1962. When Plum Warner was asked to name the greatest bowler ever, he said that John Barton King, at his best, was just as good as any of them.
King is known as one of the first bowlers to use swing bowling on purpose. Other bowlers sometimes got the ball to swing, but King could do it whenever he wanted, with both new and old balls. He used a very effective delivery he called the "angler." This came from his experience as a baseball pitcher. He would hold the ball above his head with both hands, like a baseball pitcher. He was famous for his late swing, where the ball would change direction sharply in the last 10 or 15 feet of its flight. King used this special ball only sometimes and only against very good batsmen.
After an Australian team visited Philadelphia in 1896, George Giffen said, "the Philadelphians really have some high-class players, but it was the fact of their bowlers playing us with baseball curves that upset our batsmen."
Images for kids
-
King's First-class batting career, showing runs scored (red bars) and the average of the last ten innings (blue line).
See also
In Spanish: Bart King para niños
