One of the things that seems to be lost in history is how baseball was popular in Britain until the second world war, it was up there in popularity with association football, cricket and the two rugby codes. Two wars in 30 years meant that there wasn’t a lot of money to go around though, and sports clubs decided to focus on their main source of money. Baseball didn’t stand a chance as most teams became football, cricket or rugby teams.
There is still some evidence of this history around, like with Derby county’s old stadium, the Baseball Ground. It has been demolished and redeveloped now, but if you see photographs from the 90s you can see how the stands were originally built for a baseball diamond.
