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| In memory of Harold Booth |
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Harold Booth Catching
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MAY 13, 1921 – DECEMBER 25, 2007
Let me take you back to 1947, the autumn. The year that Joe DiMaggio helped the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-3 in the World Series. The year that the opening game of the Series was the first ever to be televised live and over 73,000 fans filled the Yankee Stadium.
Here in the north of England, earlier that year, in the spring, baseball history was also being made.
Fred Booth and his brother Harry, both baseball enthusiasts, had been following the game since the mid-1930s, when a professional league existed here in England, and they decided to make a difference and turn an interest into a lifetime passion.
At Turn Moss Playing Fields in Stretford, Manchester, Fred and Harry and their teammates founded a baseball club that still exists today, over 60 years later. The origin of Manchester Baseball Club, one of the longest surviving clubs in the country, is the Stretford Saints created in the spring of 1947.
Harold (as we knew him – and he was always listed in the game programmes as Harold), was the first choice catcher. He went on to captain his team for many years. The club expanded to two teams, including the Stretford Aces, and enjoyed tremendous success. The Saints were captained by Harold when they played an exhibition game against the United States Air Force Burtonwood team on June 2, 1953 in front of a large crowd in Ashton-on-Mersey in Sale, complete with marching bands, to celebrate the Coronation of our Queen Elizabeth II – the very same day that Joe DiMaggio announced to the world his retirement from the great game.
Retirement, however, was never on the agenda for Harold.
Harold played regularly in the 40s, 50s and 60s in front of 200-300 enthusiastic spectators, and occasionally over 600 people watched a nail-biting game in a tournament or top-of-the-table clash. It was an amazing achievement for an amateur game, when less than a stone’s throw away Lancashire Cricket Club had fewer people through their turnstiles. Even more surprising was that over 100 people regularly watched Harold and his teammates’ practice games.
By the 1960s Harold was the resident umpire behind the plate. Without doubt Harold knew the rulebook inside and out, and that is in itself a remarkable achievement. He became an umpiring authority, often referred to in order to clarify a ruling after the post-game analysis.
Harold was a proud, immaculate, prompt and disciplined sportsman, a man of his generation where these qualities fitted exactly with the uniform of a man in blue. He was never one to seek the limelight, happy to just do his job.
In the 1990s, Harold’s long-standing friend Arthur Kendall set out to revive the heydays they had enjoyed in the 1960s by starting a junior club called the Trafford Saints. Harold was the resident club umpire and never missed a game. This period saw a rebirth of baseball at the grass roots, culminating with Regional and National Championships for the Saints, with Harold often umpiring and passing on his skills to enthusiastic youngsters, both home and away, with a vigour that belied his years. It was the Junior Saints and the Stretford A’s that eventually formed the Manchester Baseball Club in the millennium year -- and Harold was still turning up.
Modest and content, Harold continued to surprise everyone with his amazing fitness, still umpiring into his 70s.
Harold will be sadly missed by all those who knew him, a gentleman on and off the field and a legend of British Baseball.
And Manchester Baseball Club owes a debt of gratitude to one of our founders. MBC would not exist today had Harold not dedicated his life to his passion for baseball. For Harold, it was more than just a game.
Harold Booth will always be remembered.
Rest In Peace.
Chris Woodall
January 8, 2008
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Stretford Saints in 1952
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