ENGLAND'S BASEBALL CHOICE National Baseball Association have chosen the following team to meet America on August 13 in the first of five international matches at Liverpool.[i]

In August 1938, playing on home soil, England bested America in the first World Amateur Baseball Championship. Play-by-plays of this five-game series already exist in print.[ii] I cannot improve on those accounts; instead, what I want to do here is present the background to this event, a brief summary of the games, and the biographies of the players in the England team. They were quite a group.

[i] ‘England’s Baseball Choice’, Daily News (London), 5 August 1938.

[ii] Ian Smyth, ‘Baseball Put to the Test And England Emerge Victorious’, Baseball Research Journal, 1995, 24, 131–133. Harvey Sahker, ‘The Blokes of Summer’, (Free Lance Writing Associates, Inc., 2011), 126–128.

The Origins

The Games

The Players

George Patrick ‘Chummie’ McNeil (1914–1997)

William Daniel ‘Danny’ Wright (1911–?)

Samuel ‘Sam’ Hanna (1910–1975)

François ‘Frank’ Cadorette (1913–2007)

Gerald Keith ‘Jerry’ Strong (1913–1956)

Jack Ritchie (?–?)

Leo Joseph ‘Doc’ Holden (1906–1967)

Kenneth Walsh ‘Ken’ Robinson (1911–1987)

Archdale Ross Kendrick (1909–1975)

Lawrence Edward ‘Larry’ Marsh DFC (1913–1987)

Irving ‘Snooker’ Ruvinsky (1908–1956)

Donald Alexander ‘Sid’ Bissett (1906–1992)