Baseball

WHAT have Ted Lewis, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Jimmy Austin got in common? Not a difficult one that - Cobb and Ruth sort of give it away.

But Lewis and Austin were also legends of the game of American Major League baseball and they've got something else in common - they were both born in Wales.

Lewis was born in Machynlleth on 25 December 1872 and emigrated with his family to the US at the age of eight.

In 1893 he entered Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and found acclaim through his prowess as a baseball pitcher.

He funded his post-graduate studies through a short but highly successful career in baseball, starting with the Boston Beaneaters and moving up to the American League in 1901 as a member of the first ever Red Sox team.

Austin was born on 8 December 1879 in Swansea and the shipbuilder's son went on to become a professional baseball player and coach with the St Louis Browns.

Austin's father moved to the US in 1885 to find work, with his son following two years later. After leaving school in 1889 Austin became a machinist with Westinghouse and on finishing his four-year apprenticeship, the company went on strike. Austin took up an offer of US$40 a month, plus a job, to play independent baseball in Warren, Ohio.

He returned to Westinghouse that autumn but in spring 1904 he signed with a Central League club in Dayton, Ohio. He stayed with Dayton until 1907, when he was sold to Omaha in the Western League. He stole 97 bases for Omaha in 1908 and moved on to the New York Highlanders of the American League.

He made his Major League debut in 1909 at the relatively advanced age of 28. He played two seasons in New York but was traded to the St Louis Browns in 1911 - the start of a 30-year relationship he enjoyed with the team as a player and coach.

Lewis retired from baseball at the height of his career after the Red Sox won their final game of the 1901 season on a shutout, the first in the history of the Boston Red Sox.

Having received his Master's degree in 1899, he taught elocution at Columbia from 1901-03 and then returned to Williams to teach oratory.

He twice, unsuccessfully, ran for Congress as a Democrat (1911 and 1914) and spent some years at Massachusetts Agricultural College, spearheading its transformation into today's University of Massachusetts, and ultimately took the post of president of the University of New Hampshire, putting much effort into developing it. He died in May 1936 at the age of 63 and is buried in the Durham Community Cemetery.

Austin played regularly for the Browns until 1921 and served as a coach for another 20 years. He is immortalised in a famous Charles M Conlon photo as the third baseman trying to avoid Cobb's spikes on a stolen base.

He coached the Browns until 1932, when he joined the White Sox for seven years, and died in 1965 at Laguna Beach, California.