O’Malley’s baseball seed flourishing in auld sod

The US Navy’s baseball team, the Rota Blue Devils, will make history in July along with the Liverpool Trojans when they play at the first ever Peter O’Malley Invitational Tournament in Dublin.

The last time two overseas baseball teams took each other on in Dublin, Croke Park was the venue for a 1946 exhibition game between the Dodgers and the Yankees.

Ok, so admittedly the real boys of summer from Brooklyn and the Bronx never managed to reach the sacred turf. In fact it was American servicemen on their way home from the war who were representing the less renowned Burtonwood Dodgers and the Mildenhall Yankees in what must have been a poignant if a little underwhelming occasion.