Rather more than fifty years ago, not long after the War, there was a baseball match in Croke Park in aid of the Irish Red Cross.One question that leaps to mind is – 'What made them think that anyone in Ireland would want to see a baseball game'?
The teams were American servicemen flown in from Air Force bases in England: the Burtonwood Dodgers and the Mildenhall Yankees.
With them they brought mini-skirted cheerleaders, described memorably by Paddy Purcell as having "whipped the crowd into a frenzy of apathy." The proceedings were boring, the performance dire and the entertainment value nil.
I have to admit that I'm a bit dubious about that "mini-skirted cheerleaders" claim seeing as mini-skirts weren't the fashion at the time and cheerleaders are still fairly rare at baseball games. Still, it's possible that a selection of leggy Yanks was brought along in case baseball didn't fill the coffers of the Red Cross.
Of course it was only fair seeing as the All-Ireland Final was played in the Polo Grounds, home of the NY Giants, in 1947.
