Ebbets Field 1938 World Champion British Baseball Team Jersey

Garbstore is the place of ‘unfamiliar vintage’ – taking old menswear classics from around the world and updating them for the modern man. With New Yorker Nick Schonberger, the two have combined to unearth an incredible event in sporting history. This is not a fashion story, it’s a story of lost sporting heritage, of the old world against the new, former ruler against young future superpower – of baseball novices facing up against its modern-day founders. On the cusp of World War II, this is the story of when, in August 1938, a representative England baseball squad hosted a five-game international series against Team USA – and won.

“Matches were played in Halifax, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, and Rochdale, and England took a commanding four-games-to-one victory. The host team, which consisted mainly of players competing in a domestic league in the north-west of the country (the Yorkshire-Lancashire league), had two shut-out victories over their opponents, including a 3−0 win in front of 10 000 spectators at Wavertree Stadium in Liverpool.

Team USA, who were preparing for the 1940 Olympics (which were planned for Tokyo but were cancelled because of the War), featured players picked at the National Amateur Baseball Trials in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The International Baseball Federation later designated the series as the first official baseball World Cup. Since England subsequently came to compete as part of Great Britain, the record books show GB as the first world champions. Fittingly, the shirts that England wore were adorned with the British Union flag, rather than the English cross of St George.” – Joe Gray, author of What About Villa? Forgotten Figures from Britain’s pro baseball league of 1890.