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Wales Online
Wales Online
Lifestyle
Elizabeth Thomas

When baseball was one of the biggest sports in Cardiff and the fight to keep it going

When you think of baseball, most people think of it being a sport mainly played across the pond in America.

But the game was once one of the most popular in Wales' capital with dozens of teams, a dedicated correspondent for the South Wales Echo and large crowds watching every single weekend.

Although there are fewer teams than during the sport's peak, baseball in Cardiff remains a popular sport with a dedicated following.

Read more: 23 fascinating photos of Grangetown from war-time bombing through to the 1990s

We've taken a look back through the archives and spoken to those who helped make baseball a much-loved Cardiff sport and continue to promote it decades later.

Baseball associations were set up in South Wales and Liverpool in 1892 and it quickly became an incredibly well-followed summer sport in pockets of southeast Wales.

Grange Albion Baseball Club, based in the Grangetown area of Cardiff, is one of the oldest baseball clubs. Grange Albion was formed after members of the Penarth Road Methodists baseball team left to form a new team, Grange YMCA. The remaining Methodists' players accepted a proposal to form a new team called Grange Albion.

Established in 1907, the club's first match was on May 14 that year on The Marl in Grangetown against Llandough. Albion won by eight men to bat.

In the club's first year, the team won a promotion to the First Division but were relegated after one season. A ladies team was also formed in later years.

The club moved to Sevenoaks Park after World War II, but they originally played at The Marl when baseball was a popular sport in Cardiff and dozens of teams played there.

Grange Albion Baseball Team in July 1960 (Media Wales Ltd.)

The club celebrated its centenary in 2007 with a game at The Marl, where the club had played its first game. Mark Jones was chairman at the time.

"We had a wonderful evening in the Millennium Stadium which will never be forgotten," he said.

"It was a great occasion. We had a charity match on the Marl. It was just a wonderful occasion. It deserved a wonderful night and we got a wonderful night."

Mark, 60, was baseball correspondent for the South Wales Echo for 15 years and started playing for Grange Albion when he was 17. He played for Wales 13 times and played for Grange Albion for around 20 years.

"I went to work with one of [Grange Albion's] legends, a bowler called Charlie Kinsey. He asked me to come and have a game, and that was it - I fell in love with the game and played it for the rest of my sporting career," he said.

"It's still very much a family sport, and was always a family sport, especially for the people of Grangetown. It was family entertainment for the people of Grangetown, and that's what was so special about it, I think.

"You didn't just go off and play by yourself on a Sunday, you would take your family to the game and everything."

Mark said he "thoroughly enjoyed" playing baseball alongside Welsh legends of the sport and up against some "great teams."

"The opposition was always tough, but it was always a fantastic way of enjoying your summers," he said.

Jason Cross, 48, from Grangetown has been playing baseball in Grangetown since he was 12, and still plays for Grange Albion.

"I went to play for Grange Catholics under 14s when I was 13 because Grange Albion didn't have a youth side at the time," he said.

"Grange Catholics were the only team with a youth side. When I was 15, Mark Jones from the Albion said, 'Why don't you come and have a game with us?'

"I was a bit daunted by men's baseball, at 15 years old. I played in Grange Albion's second team for about three or four years, then went into their first team and never really left."

Gary Jones (second from left) with his three brothers (Gary Jones)

Jason has many fond memories of playing baseball but can remember Grange Albion winning the league seven years "on the trot" after not winning it since 1974.

"One of those years, we won the treble in 2012 or 2013. The last team to win the treble was Grange Albion, but not since that 1974 season," he said.

He has also travelled three times to play for Wales against England when the International Games took place.

Gary Jones, 59, has played for Grange Albion since he was 12, "right up until last year."

"My first memory is going to Maindy Stadium with my dad, who was captain of Grange Albion," he said.

"I was five or six, so around 1969-70. I remember going to watch with my dad loads of times.

"My dad had a minibus to take the youth side and it was full of Grangetown boys. That was my first ever game - they were short, so I played. I think I was about 11 or 12."

Rumney v Grange Catholics on May 29, 2013 (Peter Bolter)

His favourite memory is winning the league against Llanrumney in 2005 - "A great memory of a great game."

Gary, "Grangetown born and bred," believes that baseball became so popular because it is a "great family sport."

"It's a great summertime sport - there's a lot of excitement to it, for people to play in, for people to watch," he said.

"Especially in Grangetown, a pretty poor area, Llanrumney, a pretty poor area, Ely, pretty poor area, Splott, a pretty poor area. But the sportspeople always shone in those areas.

"Most of the winning sides come from these areas. That was where the true sportsmen were."

Jason added that he believes baseball is so popular in South Wales because it is a "working-class sport."

"That's the easiest way to put it. When the football and rugby season finished, baseball was always the sport that was played in between the seasons finishing and starting again," he said.

"When I first started playing baseball, I can remember there were about seven divisions with around ten teams in each division."

Grange Albion's Stephen Ayres batting, with Grange Catholics' WK Jason Cross in action on June 26, 2013 (Richard Swingler)

Mark said that, in its heyday, baseball in South Wales was looked on as a "top-class sport" and attracted rugby and football players.

"I played for Wales with Mark Ringer, David Bishop, numerous times, and they were the top sports personalities in Cardiff at the time," he said.

"For them to play the game as well, it added a bit - and that's going back to Cardiff City players back in the 1950s and 1960s playing baseball.

"The great David Giles and Phil Dwyer and the likes, they would rock up on a Saturday and play for their local clubs and then the next couple of weeks they'd be playing for Cardiff City in the first division.

"That was the wonder of it - it was every Cardiff sportsman's summer sport."

Bowler Paddy Hennessey had a long-standing record, that wasn't surpassed until 2014. Facing England at the Maindy Stadium in 1964, Hennessey demolished his rivals’ batting lineup for just six runs in 30 balls and nine sensational minutes of play.

He was widely regarded as the fastest bowler of his era during the 1950s and 1960s.

According to the Welsh Baseball Union website, the game dates back as far as 1892 when the English and Welsh governing bodies changed the name from rounders to reflect more accurately the demanding, high-speed nature of the sport.

However, the baseball played by the Welsh teams is very different from the version popular in America. One of the biggest differences in Welsh and English baseball, for instance, is that the bowling is underarm, and delivered at a "terrific pace." This is partly because there are just 16 yards between the bowler and batsman.

Baseball has a strong heritage in Cardiff and across South Wales, especially in Grangetown where teams such as the Grange Quins and Grange Catholics, as well as Grange Albion, were formed.

By 1921, there were 60 clubs and 1,400 registered players in the Welsh Baseball Union, almost all of which were based in Cardiff and Newport.

Matches started being televised in the 1970s, even though the sport still very much remained in its heartlands of Cardiff, Newport, and Liverpool.

A match between Wales and England was held on August 3, 1908 at the Harlequins Ground in Roath, with Wales winning the match 122-118. The match saw three Cardiff RFC players take the fields.

Wales v England in Roath Park, August 14, 1982. Welsh batsman David 'Dubber' Richards of Caerau, hits the ball for three runs off the bowling of England's Jeff Linge, watched by England backstop Neil Rice. (Western Mail and Echo Copyright)
Ladies Roath Park Baseball Club in the 1950s (Western Mail Archive)

In 1921, the Welsh Baseball Union comprised of 60 clubs, all within the Cardiff and Newport areas. As school leagues were established, Cardiff saw the first schoolgirls league. The first women's international match took place between Wales and England in 1926.

The sport continued to grow in popularity throughout the Great Depression era, with the Cardiff & District League boasting 37 teams by 1929 - 19 of which were based in of Splott and Grangetown.

In 2015, the annual Wales v England game was called off for the first time in 70 years, after the English team was unable to go ahead as the English team were unable to find numbers to put a team together.

The fixture had taken place every year since 1908 except during the two World Wars.

Mark said that the decline of the game over the years has been "disappointing."

"The international every year was great to play for your country and play against England. I think losing that - we had a challenge to play against England and it was looked forward to every year," he said.

"It was baseball's New Year's Eve. Once the demise of the game happened in England, it slowly affected our game as well."

He added. "I think there's a lot of footballers now earning money through football that aren't around to play as often - and rugby players. I think there are a lot more sports now to play," Mark said.

"You've got to hope that it will come back. The women's game has been fantastic to keep their game going, they have to take credit.

"The men's game has restarted now but the women's game did fantastically well to keep the sport relevant in our minds."

Mark believes that there can be a revival of the popularity of the game, especially with those who are re-starting the leagues in South Wales.

"If you ask people 'What is one of the sports that Cardiff has invented and played for 100 years?' it's baseball," he said.

"If you're a historian coming to the area and looking at what's in Cardiff, that has to be on the list.

"They have to start teaching it again in schools, show people what we did for 100 years. It's a part of our culture, baseball, especially Cardiff and Newport."

Gary added that one of the reasons he feels the sport has declined is that it is no longer played in schools.

"Schools had a lot to do with it, because you had teachers coming into Cardiff didn't take the time - some did, some didn't," he said.

"They stopped doing it in schools, which is a great upset. I ran a youth side about four years ago and I had so many kids who wanted to play, it was just unbelievable."

Gary and Jason are two of a group of people who got together last year to re-start a league, the GB Sportswear Men's Baseball League, coming up with a four-team season in four weeks. The teams play once a week.

"We got it going again last year for the first time in five years, there was no men's baseball whatsoever," Jason said.

"I made a couple of phone calls to Jason, the clubs like St Albans, Llanrumney, Ely, Grange Catholics, Newport, and we got a few guys who liked baseball," Gary said.

"We got together, had a little meeting, and then we decided to go from there. We had about four or five months before the start. Jason had done a lot of work, we got our heads together and decided to give it a go."

The group advertised for players across social media and were able to get the league up and running, playing over at Rumney Rugby Club.

"We're hoping to keep the game going this year, and we welcome more sides," Gary said, adding that they hope to start more youth sides.

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