Liverpool Trojans Baseball Club Bootle Stadium, Maguire Ave, Bootle, Merseyside. L20 9PQ
Halton Jaguars 26th May 2013
Sunday 26th May - Liverpool Trojans sweep the Halton Jaguars 4 - 0 and 13 - 3
The end of an era as Chris Luciano plays his last game for the Trojans before heading back to New York after completing his studies at the University of Liverpool. A great send off as the Trojans take both games of the double header with Luch in the starring role of Shortstop, batting clean up.
Game 1 turned out to be a pitching dual between Martin Godsall for the Trojans and Mitch Cross starting on the hill for the Jaguars. Godsall kept the Jaguars off the scoreboard for all seven innings he was on the hill. He pitched a complete game shutout, allowing no opposing player to cross the plate on five hits while striking out seven. Godsall was backed up by some excellent defensive plays, most notably from Harry Wren in the hot corner at third base and Danny Byrne in right field. Andy Heap, playing 2nd base executed the play of the game with a 'bang bang' double play after snagging a line drive then gunning the stranded base runner out at 1st.
Mitch Cross didn't receive the back up defensively as errors crept into the Jaguars game at key moments.
Alan Alger collected 3 hits with an RBI, backed up by Harry Wren and Chris Luciano collecting a couple of hits each. Andy Heap drove in a couple of runs with key hits in clutch situations. The Trojans in this type of form, are a hard team to beat.
Game 2, With regular starting pitcher Mario Escobedo unavailable, as was his catching partner, Dave Martin Baez, the Trojans turned to ex Jaguar Chris Pittard to pitch partnered by the ever reliable Paul Mason behind the plate. Growing in confidence with every outing, Pittard set to work retiring the first six batters he faced. Unlike Godsall in game one, Pittard was back up by a lively Trojans offense.
The top of the order combination of Alan Alger, Harry Wren and Ian Blease combined for 8 hits and 7 RBI's. Chris Pittard helped his cause with a stand up double and two RBI's.
A based loaded 'Hit by Pitch' for Ian Blease afforded by Jaguars third pitcher of the game, Carl Heesom, gave the Trojans a ten run lead heading into the bottom of the fifth. Despite two close plays at home the Jaguars couldn't score a run to prevent the 10 run slaughter rule being applied. John Gill making the final out of the game snagging a high fly ball to right field.
The Trojans now take a couple of weeks off, returning to action on June 16th to take on Bolton Baseball Club and the Oldham North Stars from the AA division. Both games will be played at Bootle Stadium starting at 12pm
A rich history of baseball exists on Merseyside dating back to the 1930's. 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.
The original team was formed in 1946 by ex-servicemen returning from the second world war. During the early years the team were on a very steep learning curve as the standard of baseball in the UK was extremely high. During the mid 70's and early 80's the Trojans won the British Championship 3 times and won their own division for nine consecutive years, at the time a British record. The current Liverpool Trojans are setting their own high standards and are keen to follow their predecessor's winning ways.
