King was part of the Philadelphia team that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I.

King, an amateur from a middle-class family, was able to devote time to cricket thanks to a job set up by his teammates.

A skilled batsman who proved his worth as a bowler, King set numerous records in the continent of North America during his career and led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908.

He dismissed batsmen with his unique delivery, which he called the "angler", and helped develop the art of swing bowling in the sport.

[2] Sir Pelham Warner described Bart King as "one of the finest bowlers of all time",[3] and Donald Bradman called him "America's greatest cricketing son.

King was not a member of the aristocratic and wealthy families of Philadelphia that produced many of the era's top cricketers.

King's obituary in Cricket Quarterly suggests that his career in insurance was set up for him by those families to allow him to continue playing the game.

He is said to have spoken for ninety minutes at a dinner during his last tour to England, punctuated every few seconds with laughs.

One man who attended the dinner noted that King "told his impossible tales with such an air of conviction ... that his audiences were always in doubt when to take him seriously.

In spite of this fatigue, the Australians chose to face the full strength of the Gentlemen of Philadelphia in a three-day match starting September 29.

The Australian side, fielding first, dropped many catches and could not cope with the short boundary, allowing the Philadelphians to reach a huge total of 525 runs.

When the Australians came to bat, they hoped that they would, by now, have recovered from their tiring journey, but ran into problems when dealing with Bart King's developing swing bowling.

[11] The cricket world was stunned that a single American city could turn out a side capable of beating the full strength of Australia.

[13] Previous tours had tended to involve amateur English sides with a low level of competition.

[13] While the tour initially aroused some curiosity, many English fans lost interest until Bart King and the Philadelphians met the full Sussex team at Brighton on June 17.

[7] Despite the excitement surrounding King's performance, the Americans did not fare well overall, and the results may have been worse than hoped for by the tour's promoters.

It was thought that he would not play as a professional, so alternative means of remuneration had to be found: one county reportedly offered to arrange a marriage with a widow who had an income of £7000 per year.

With the wind strong over King's left shoulder, the scene was set for him to dominate the opposition.

In his first over after the lunch break on day two of the match, he yorked one of Lancashire's opening batsmen and his replacement with successive balls.

On a rainy afternoon at Philadelphia in 1906, King bowled into a slight breeze to capture 8 wickets for 17 runs.

[23] The Times newspaper in the UK ran an obituary for him, which quoted Plum Warner as saying that: "Had he been an Englishman or an Australian, he would have been even more famous than he was.

The following year, he scored 344 not out for Belmont against the Merion Cricket Club, setting a North American batting record which still stands.

[24] There is an apocryphal story of King emulating a famous baseball pitcher of the day, Rube Waddell, by sending all his fielders back into the pavilion and finishing off the opponent's innings on his own.

This fielder was stationed there to pick up the bails which landed at his feet after King bowled his trademark "angler".

[10] This story was disputed some years later by the captain of Trenton, who claimed that when he "went in to bat that afternoon, King had four balls left in his over."

"[8] The captain claimed to be the only batsmen to have hit four consecutive sixes off King, but commended the bowler on his ability to spin a tale.

[10] He made use of a lethal delivery which he called the "angler", a product of his experience as a baseball pitcher, to confuse the English batsmen.

[25] After a tour to Philadelphia by an Australian side in 1896,[26] 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.