A former Herts Falcons star, who helped the team to its first ever National Baseball League pennant, has been given a deserved place in the British Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ryan Bird was a force both as a pitcher and a slugger in his years with Herts. He is one of four players, coaches and officials from across the game who have been inducted in the Class of 2019.

He is the first Herts figure to be given a place in the Hall, which is another milestone for a club which is now one of the strongest pillars of British baseball.

The South African native received immediate recognition in his first year in the British leagues, in 2008. He was voted the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the NBL for his performances with the Richmond Flames. The achievement was all the more remarkable given that this was a time of total domination by the London Mets.

In the following year, Bird was once again voted league MVP, making him the first player to receive two such awards since the London Warriors were the big force in the game. He hit five home runs for Richmond, leading the NBL in that category.

In 2012, Ryan Bird made the high profile move to the Herts Falcons and had an immediate impact. He won a Defensive Award, as the best First Baseman of the Year, and helped Herts to the NBL final series against the Nationals, which they lost in six games.

He would win NBL MVP for a third time in 2013, but that bald fact — impressive as it is — didn’t really do justice to his performance. For one thing, he helped take the Falcons to a 24-4 record and their first ever pennant in the National Baseball League.

Bird drove in a career best 31 runs. And in August he chalked up the extraordinary feat of pitching two back-to-back no-hitters. His first victims were the South London Pirates. He struck out 15 batters and walked only 2 in that victory.

As the Herts report put it at the time: “Maybe it was the very unusual all-lefty battery (Ryan pitching and Cris Hiche catching), or the Bingo Bango written in a player’s forearm, that confused and maybe intimidated the Pirates’ lineup. But I think most likely it was the great command of Ryan’s fastball and his ability to constantly and accurately hit the corners of the plate.”

A week later, Bird did it again. This time the Essex Redbacks were on the wrong end of the no-hitter, with 9 strikeouts recorded. As far as we could tell, the feat was unprecedented in the elite level of British baseball.

The opening game of the 2014 season against the London Mets was Ryan Bird’s last for the Falcons before his move to the USA. He said goodbye to the Herts fans with another outstanding performance going 4-4 with a home run which, according to the game report, “probably is still hovering somewhere over St Albans”.

At the time of his retirement, Bird had the highest career batting average (.508), on base percentage (.578) and slugging percentage (.822) in modern British baseball history.  All told, he tallied 15 HRs and 119 RBI over the course of 385 plate appearances for the Richmond Flames and Herts Falcons (stats from Project Cobb).

Ryan Bird was elected alongside Jason Holowaty and Darrin Muller from the modern ballot, with Alan Asquith being elected by the historical vetting panel that was introduced in 2016.

At the London Series games in 2019 between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, an event honoured the previous round of inductees. The hope is that something similar can be done in June 2020 for this year’s class.

The guardian of the Hall, Matt Smith, said: “I’m delighted to see four such worthy candidates joining our Hall of Fame, all with different stories to tell but sharing a true commitment to the game in Britain and excelling at what they did.”

Thanks to Matt for sections of this article, which appeared first on the baseballgb website. You can read more about the Hall of Fame and its members at bbhof.org

Herts Baseball Club is proud to announce the arrival of Regin Products as a sponsor for this season, in a partnership which offers crucial help to the Falcons as they travel to Europe.

Our National Baseball League (NBL) team will soon be playing in the European Federations Cup in Bulgaria,  for the first time in their twenty year history. They will face teams from Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria over a week of action in Blagoevgrad.

One of the missions of the Herts club this year has been to help support the players and coaches on this trip, as baseball receives no funding for international competition. So we are delighted that Regin Products have come on board to help the Falcons make this possible with their generous support.

Regin is a family-run company with 30 years of experience supplying products to heating and plumbing engineers. The firm is based in Cambridgeshire, but has a wide network of stockists.

The firm’s watchwords are pride in its quality and its service, and we share those values at Herts. Our players are always ambassadors for the club, and we are proud that they will be representing not only Herts but British baseball when they play in Bulgaria.

The Falcons qualified for this tournament with their post-season heroics in 2018, in which they dramatically beat the Southampton Mustangs and the London Capitals to reach the NBL final. The London Mets got the better of them in the final series, and the Mets are also playing in Europe this summer, in Moscow.

Another crucial contribution to the Falcons’ efforts in Europe will come from the newly launched Herts Baseball Lottery. This is open to anyone over the age of 16, whether or not they are a member of the club.

Everyone who enters will have the chance to win the monthly jackpot, while the net proceeds will be put towards the trip to Blagoevgrad. In the future, the money raised from the Lottery will go towards major club projects and help recruit more players to the sport of baseball.

Over its history, Herts has developed Grovehill ballpark to become one of the country’s top venues, and it has expanded in 2019 into northwest London.

Falcons players and other members of the club have already been making their contributions this season to raise money for the European Federations Cup..

Herts players have been coaching youth teams, and the club has been matching their fees and paying them into the Herts Euro Fund.

One of our coaches, Marianna Casal – a European softball champion and a participant in the first official women’s baseball game in the UK – took part in a National Geographic television programme about baseball. She has pledged 50% of her fee to the Euro Fund.

Members of the club have also been using the online shopping portal, easyfundraising. This scheme offers donations to the charity of your choice – such as Herts – when you buy goods from a wide range of retailers, including Amazon, John Lewis and Sainsbury’s. It can also be used when you buy your holiday from Thomas Cook or Tui, or your car insurance from RAC and ComparetheMarket.

Over its 23-year history, Herts Baseball Club has been running various fundraising activities and projects which have helped this non-profit organisation to invest in new and better facilities and to increase the number of people playing baseball.

The club is now expanding its fundraising activities further with the launch of the Herts Baseball Lottery.

You don’t have to be a club member to play. Anyone over the age of 16 can buy a ticket and play for a chance to win the Jackpot every month and, at the same time, raise funds for club projects.

The net proceeds from every monthly Lottery draw between June and December 2019 will be used to help fund the Herts Falcons’ European Cup campaign.

Herts Falcons’ heroics in the National Baseball League Playoffs last September meant that next month they will play in the European Federations Cup for the first time in the club’s history. They have been drawn in a group with teams from Sweden, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria. The games will be played between 10 and 15 June 2019 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria.

For full details how to play go to the Herts Baseball Lottery webpages.