The Belfast club proving that baseball has found a home in Northern Ireland

Thirty years since it’s founding, The Ulster Baseball and Softball Club now has two baseball teams and a softball team

Thirty years after a group of American immigrants introduced baseball to Belfast, the city’s only baseball club is celebrating a milestone anniversary while looking firmly to the future.

The Ulster Baseball and Softball Club has grown from its roots as a home away from home for homesick players into a diverse organisation bringing together people from across the world through America’s national pastime.

Today, the club fields the North Stars in Division One of Baseball Ireland, the Buccaneers development team in Division Two and the Belfast Angels softball side in Softball Ulster’s Division B. Players regularly travel across Ireland for fixtures, with away trips taking them to places including Dublin, Bray, Ashbourne and Portmarnock as they compete against clubs from across the island.

The anniversary falls during a year of transition for the club, as the North Stars adapt to life in the top flight after promotion. General manager Mark Lorimer says the ambition is not only to establish the senior side but to continue developing new players and ensure baseball continues to grow in Northern Ireland.

“So the North Stars themselves this year were 30 years old, and between the teams within the club, obviously, we have the North Stars playing in Division One in Baseball Ireland. We have our development squad with the Buccaneers,” he said.

“It’s made up of a mixture of experience plus new people to the sport. I played for the Buccaneers myself. They play in Division 2, which is the old B-League in Baseball Ireland.

“And then we have the Belfast Angels, and they currently play in Division B within Softball Ulster.”

The club’s fixtures see players travelling the length of Ireland throughout the season, although arrangements are sometimes made to ease the burden of the longest journeys. While Cork has teams competing in the leagues, both clubs meet in Dublin rather than making the full cross-country trip.

Mark added: “In the leagues themselves between the two divisions, there are 14 teams. Some clubs still have multiple teams within a club, but we’d be travelling on the baseball side of things.

“We’d be travelling as far as Dublin, Bray, Ashbourne, and Portmarnock. We used to travel to Clones, but that team sadly folded.

“But we do have teams as far down as Cork, but the arrangement between us and Cork, obviously, with the logistics, they meet us in Dublin. We travel to Dublin, and the two teams play off in one of the fields down there.”

For Ballymena man Mark, baseball has been part of his life since a cross-community trip to the United States as a teenager. A visit to see the Boston Red Sox left a lasting impression, but it was only after the coronavirus > Covid pandemic that he discovered Belfast had its own baseball club and decided to give it a try.

“I first fell in love with baseball back in 1994. I was 15. I was part of a cross-community group of Protestant and Catholic kids who were taken to America as part of a YMCA trip.

“My first taste of American sports was actually basketball. I’m not the stature for that. So I’ve seen the Boston Celtics play live, and then I’ve seen the Red Sox, but the whole American version of sports was a lot different to what we experienced, playing football and rugby.

“There seems to be a full day out, whereas our games traditionally last about 90 minutes or 80 minutes. I don’t mean it’s over then. There’s a wee bit of a party before and after, but in the American side of things, it’s a whole day out for a family, it’s a family affair.”

That sense of community is something he believes has become one of the club’s greatest strengths. While the sport may have been established by American and Canadian expats missing home, today’s membership reflects a much broader mix of backgrounds and nationalities.

Mark said: “when I first got involved with this club, I didn’t know anybody. It was just after COVID, and I thought I’d reach out and try something new.

“I’d just passed 40 years of age. I’m now 47. I’ve seen the North Stars on Facebook. I couldn’t believe they actually had baseball in Ireland, never mind Belfast.

“I reached out to the club. I was asked to come down to one of the training sessions, but I actually fell in love with the people first. But to get to play the sport that you actually have an understanding and love for is fantastic.”

He added: “The club and the sport itself was set up with a lot of expats living in Northern Ireland, just maybe a bit homesick, wanted to emulate some of that sport over here. That was 30 years ago.

“We have a lot of North Americans between the USA and Canada. We have a lot of Venezuelans, expats as well.

“We have English, we have Welsh, we’ve got Scots, we’ve got Irish ourselves, north and south. So there are people from everywhere that have really just jumped on board with what is America’s pastime, really.”

The club has also enjoyed success on the field in recent years. The North Stars earned promotion after back-to-back league pennants, while the Angels and the club’s youth teams have also collected silverware.

Mark continued: “We have been quite successful in both sports. The North Stars, when we were back in Division B for the last three years, we’ve continually made the playoffs, on the final games and went to the final third game.

“We just couldn’t get over that hurdle, but we were successful enough when Aodhán [Hamill] was captain, where we won the pennant, which is basically winning the league before you got to the playoff stage. We won that back-to-back for two seasons.

“On the softball side of it, we’ve been quite successful as well. The Angels won the B-League back in 2023, and our Little League team, the Badgers, won the All-Ireland, where they went 10 games undefeated and took the title.”

Looking ahead, the focus is on consolidating the North Stars’ place in Division One while continuing to grow participation across all levels of the club. Training takes place every Tuesday and Thursday evening at Hydebank Playing Fields, with new players encouraged to get involved regardless of previous experience.

Mark said: “This year’s basically a transition for us. We’re wanting to basically establish the North Stars back in Division One in Baseball Ireland. It’s a hard learning curve. It’s the level above.

“That gives our Buccaneers the space to develop a wee bit further. Where we were maybe one of the bigger fish in a smaller pond, now we’ve moved up. It’s now over to them to try and grow the sport at the next level down.

“So we train here every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 till finish. You could reach out to us through the various social media apps, Instagram, Facebook, and when people see us down here, we’re more than approachable.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.