Who’s Who in England Team

Ross Kendrick—Ross is a native son of Smith Falls, Canada. Climbed the ladder through juvenile, junior and intermediate baseball, making a name for himself in the Ottawa Valley and East Ontario League; also plays ice hockey. Pitcher with a very clean style of hooks, speed, and endurance; plays the outfield with equal ability, and as a batter rates second to none.

Archdale Ross Kendrick (1909–1975) was the MVP of the 1938 England team, pitching shutouts in Game 1 and Game 4. Josh Chetwynd has covered Ross Kendrick’s career in depth in Joe Grey’s Nine Aces and a Joker.[i] Born in Merrickville, Ontario, Kendrick got his start in softball, pitching for the team that became the Merrickville Royals. By 1933, he was juggling pitching for the Royals and pitching for the Eastern Ontario Junior Amateur Baseball League team, Smith Falls.[ii] That same year, his nascent career was almost derailed when he fell foul of the law, standing trial alongside a friend for breaking into a convenience store and stealing cigarettes. His friend admitted the charge and gave evidence that Kendrick was his accomplice. Kendrick denied the charge and was able to call on several witnesses to support his version of his movements on the night in question. The case against him was dismissed, but the magistrate warned him to watch his step in future.[iii]

Kendrick played for both the Royals and Smith Falls junior team in 1934, and then made the step up to playing for the Smith Falls senior team, the Railroaders, in the Senior Amateur League in 1935. In the 1936 season, he pitched the Railroaders to 10 victories in 11 starts in an Ottawa Valley Amateur League-winning season.[iv] The following year, Kendrick followed many of his fellow Canadians across the Atlantic to play professional baseball in England. That season, he played for the York City Maroons in a team captained by fellow future England player Larry Marsh. When, in advance of the 1938 season, the NBA put restrictions on how many pro players a team could employ, Kendrick, like Jerry Strong, made the leap to the short-lived International Baseball League (IBL), and, like Strong, scrambled to find a berth in a Yorkshire–Lancashire League team when the IBL folded. In Kendrick’s case, the Oldham Greyhounds took him in. He stayed with the Greyhounds until the onset of the Second World War.[v]

The highlight of Kendrick’s time with Oldham was probably the club’s run in the 1938 NBA National Challenge Cup. Facing off against Hull in the semifinal, Kendrick emerged victorious in a pitching duel with Jerry Strong, fanning 22 Hull players on the way to a 4–2 win. The final against the Rochdale Greys­—a team of Mormon missionaries—was a game for the ages. After fifteen innings, the score still stood at 0–0, Kendrick striking out 20 players, and Rochdale pitcher Elder Bruce Hanks, 16. Then, a visibly fatigued Kendrick mistimed a throw to first base, allowing a Rochdale player to make it home for the only run of the game. Kendrick fought back from this defeat to turn out a stellar performance for England against the USA.[vi]

Like Jack Ritchie, Kendrick made England his home. He settled in Birmingham in the Midlands, his home. He played baseball in the city throughout the Second World War, and then turned player–coach for first the Birmingham Beavers and then Bromsgrove, post-war. He was still playing, coaching, and umpiring in the local area into his sixties. He died in Birmingham in 1975. A major presence in American baseball in Britain for nearly 40 years, he was inducted into the British Baseball Hall of Fame in its inaugural year, 2009.[vii]

[i] Josh Chetwynd, ‘Ross Kendrick’, ed. Joe Grey, ‘Nine Aces and a Joker’ (Ross-on-Wye: Fineleaf Books, 2012), 27–36.

[ii] Softball for the Royals: ‘Inauguration Meeting of Merrickville Royal Club’, Weekly Advance (Kemptvile, ON), 21 April 1932. Smith Falls junior team: ‘Thumbnail Sketches Smith Falls’ Team’, Ottawa Journal, 18 September 1935.

[iii] ‘Crowded Courtroom Heard Merrickville Robbery Cases Here’, Weekly Advance (Kemptville ON), 15 June 1933.

[iv] Smith Falls: ‘Railroad Towners Score Four in Ninth to Beat Eastview, Ottawa Citizen, 25 August 1938.

[v] Chetwynd, Note i above.

[vi] This account is drawn from Chetwynd, Note i above, pages 32–33.

[vii] https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Ross_Kendrick, accessed 2 August 2025.