George McNeil (July 26, 1914 – December 24, 1997) was an ice hockey player and coach and baseball player and manager, who represented United Kingdom internationally at both sports.[2]
Baseball
McNeil played baseball in the semi-professional Yorkshire League, 1937, and Yorkshire-Lancashire League, 1938 and 1939, in the United Kingdom. He played regularly for the Yorkshire County representative side [3] including against the USA Test Series side in 1938.
He started the 1937 season with Scarborough Seagulls[4] but when they folded in August concluded the season at Hull.[5] For the 1938 season he played third base for Leeds Oaks who he had joined as coach and captain. In August 1938, at just 24 years of age, he represented the Great Britain national baseball team as player-manager in a Test Series against the United States national baseball team preparing for the 1940 Olympic Games. The British team which did consist largely of Canadians playing baseball professionally in the UK, won the Series by 4 games to 1. Subsequently, English entrepreneur and sports sponsor, John Moores, presented a trophy for the winners, the competition and Trophy becoming known as the Baseball World Cup.[6] In the 1939 season, he captained Halifax in retaining the Yorkshire-Lancashire League Championship.