Major League Baseball in Ireland – Chicago White Stockings Tour of Ireland 1889

Visiting USA Baseball Teams

Results

DateHome TeamAway Team
Game 1Venue: NICC, Belfast
03.1889All-America Club9Chicago White Stockings8
Game 2Venue: Landsdowne Rd, Dublin
27.03.1889Chicago White Stockings3All-America Club5
Major League Baseball in Ireland – Chicago White Stockings Tour 1889 [Ref: 1]

Report

Following on from the first Major League Tour of Ireland and Britain in 1874, a tour was organised by A.G. Spalding as part of a grander plan to bring American Professional Sports to the World.

Spalding’s Chicago White Stockings (now Chicago White Sox), of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (then the only Major League, as the American League would not be founded until 1901, and the National Football League, National Hockey League and National Basketball association until decades later), toured Ireland and Britain.

The Chicago team played the All-America Club in the grounds of the North of Ireland Cricket Club in Belfast, with the All-America team winning 9-8 thanks to a late 9th Inning rally.

In the return match, played at Landsdowne Road in Dublin, the White Stockings were leading 3-1 until another late 9th Inning rally, which saw the All-America Club score four runs in the Top of the Ninth.

Another facet of this tour was the decision of the English Rounders Association (Liverpool) and Welsh Rounders Association to adopt some of the rules of American Baseball, including two-handed batting (up until then batting was one-handed) and tagging a player out with the glove. The Rounders Associations changed their names to the English and Welsh Baseball Associations, to reflect the changes, although they kept the posts instead of adopting the bases as in Baseball. Welsh Baseball is still played as the traditional Celtic game of Wales (see: https://eirball.ie/welsh-baseball/ for more on this sport, which is popular in areas of Wales and Liverpool with a large Irish Working Class immigrant population).

References

Bibliography

[1] Chetwynd, Josh (2008) “Baseball in Europe: A Country by Country History”. pg. 207. Published by McFarland and Company, Jefferson, North Carolina.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Frank Kingston and Hugh Mulcahy.

About this document

Researched, compiled and written by Enda Mulcahy for the

Eirball | Irish North American & World Sports Archive

Last Updated: 24 April 2020

(c) Copyright Enda Mulcahy and Eirball 2020

You may quote this document in part provided that proper acknowledgement is given to the authors. All Rights Reserved.

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