Real Liverpool History..The Trojans,Baseball Team.

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Liverpool Trojans 1948

Although two North American Major League teams (Chicago White Sox & New York Yankees) had played an exhibition game at Goodison Park in the twenties, the first mention of American - style baseball was made in the Liverpool Echo on July 4th 1933, when an English code baseball team, the Liverpool Amateurs, challenged a Japanese ship, the Lima Maru , to a game under American rules. This game drew an "unusually large crowd" and was won by the Japanese by 12 - 9 with three home runs separating the sides. However, a year later the Amateurs won the return match. The Japanese pitcher Sikiyama, must qualify as the first official winning pitcher in Liverpool. A similar game had been played in the early twenties versus a Canadian ship, but there are no records for this game. From this information, it would appear that the Liverpool Amateurs were the first side to play American Baseball in Liverpool.

On July 20th 1933, appeared the first mention of an American style Baseball League. At this time, the game was already established in London and had existed for about 11 years under the banner of the Anglo-American Baseball Association. Teams such as the London Americans, the London Canadians and the London Japanese all competed.

 On July 11th 1933, Mr. John Moores ( of the Littlewoods Pools family) chaired a meeting of all the baseball fraternity in Liverpool, which at this time was  predominantly English Baseball. During this time, there was some dispute between the English Baseball Association and the English Baseball Union. The meeting was held at the Law Associations rooms, Cook St. Liverpool, Mr. Moores asked for the co-operation of the English Leagues, offering assistance for anyone who would change codes, additionally he offered £100.00 for teams to change to American code. He warned that, should they refuse his offers, then he would go ahead and form an American League without their co-operation. Seven teams from the EBU came forward to accept his offer, with Mr Moores already having acquired players and officials from the States and Canada. On Monday, 21st of August 1933, the first recorded American rules baseball match played between English teams took place at Priory Rd, Liverpool, between Liverpool Amateurs and Oakfield Social. Two days later an exhibition game was played with trained American rules players at the Littlewood Sports Ground, Picton Rd.