First World Amateur Baseball Championship

See Ian Smyth’s Baseball Research Journal piece for a play-by-play.[i] My focus in this piece is the England players, but here, I present a summary, drawn from Smyth and newspaper reports of the period, for completeness’s sake.

In Game 1 played in Liverpool on 13 August 1938, England’s lead pitcher Ross Kendrick handed the fresh-of-the-boat American team a real drubbing, pitching a two-hit, no-run game and fanning 16 American players. In a game that included a home run by England player Danny Wright,[ii] England clinched a 3–0 victory in front of 10,000 Merseysiders. Welcome to the Old Country.

In game 2, played at Hull, a crowd of 5000 watched England’s other star pitcher, Jerry Strong, take to the mound and strike out 12 players in a game that ended 8–6 in England’s favour. The American team was getting better but had not yet found its stride.

England’s relief pitcher, Sid Bissett, took to the mound for game 3. The game took place at Rochdale in uncertain weather and in front of the lowest attendance of the series, with only 1000 fans turning out for a game that did not feature any of the town’s local heroes (the Rochdale Greys were a team of American Mormon missionaries[iii]). These proved to be ill omens, as England were handed their only defeat of the series by a steadily improving American side, American pitcher Clyde Dean pitching a shut-out game. The result was also the product of a lackluster performance by most of the England team. The England camp may have been resting on its laurels, as indicated by its decision to start Bissett, the relief pitcher.

In response to the Rochdale defeat, England brought Kendrick back for game 4. In a game at Halifax in front of a crowd of 5000 and marked by more bad weather, Kendrick delivered another shutout game in a 4–0 victory that guaranteed England a series victory.

The final game of the series at Leeds on 19 August 1938, which attracted a crowd of 3000–4000, ended after six innings due to rain and poor light. Strong pitched the first four innings, striking out two, and Kendrick the final two innings, striking out three, in a 5–3 England victory.[iv]

With a 4–1 series victory, England became the first (and only) International Amateur Baseball Champions. Within a year, this achievement had been retrospectively elevated to that of first World Amateur Baseball Champions.[v]

[i] Ian Smyth, ‘Baseball Put to the Test And England Emerge Victorious’, Ian Smyth, ‘Baseball Put to the Test And England Emerge Victorious’, Baseball Research Journal, 1995.

[ii] ‘England Wins First Baseball Test’, Halifax Evening Courier, 15 August 1938.

[iii] Rochdale Greys Mormon missionaries:  ‘Baseball-Star Missionaries’, Daily Mirror, 2 September 1936.

[iv] ‘England Win The Baseball Test in Leeds’, Leeds Mercury, 20 August 1938; ‘Fourth Success: England’s Baseball Win at Headingley’, Bradford Observer, 20 August 1938.

[v] Various authors have described this elevation as happening ‘a long time afterwards’/’many years later’; however, it is clear from Leslie Mann’s account written in 1940, and reports in the press even earlier, that it occurred around the time of the staging of the second John Moores Cup competition in Cuba in 1939. Leslie Mann, ‘Baseball Around the World: The History and Development of the U.S.A. Baseball Congress and World’s Amateur Baseball Championship’ (Springfield: International Amateur Baseball Federation, 1940), https://springfieldcollege.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p15370coll2/id/20987/page/0/inline/p15370coll2_20987_0, accessed 29 July 2025. ‘World Title Series Games’, Liverpool Evening Express, 29 July 1939.