Gary Bedingfield

I have been researching and writing about wartime baseball for the last 25 years. Born and raised in Great Britain, I was a catcher in my playing days and played for the Enfield Spartans and the Great Britain national team. I runs two websites dedicated to wartime baseball – (baseballinwartime.com and baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com). As well as producing over 50 issues of the Baseball in Wartime Newsletter I have written numerous magazine articles and had three books published (Baseball in Hawaii During World War II, BiW Publishing, 2021; Baseball’s Dead of World War II, McFarland 2010 and Baseball in World War II Europe, Arcadia 1999 and ). A lifelong Dodgers fan, I run a staff development business near Glasgow, Scotland.

As a baseball historian and author involved in research of the game for over 25 years, my interest in baseball focuses on the World War II era, and, in particular, the military service of professional players. In 2000, I founded the unique Baseball in Wartime website (www.baseballinwartime.com) - coinciding with the release of my first book Baseball in World War II Europe (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing 1999). Since then I have written numerous articles, produced a monthly e-newsletter that has gained critical acclaim and have become recognized as a leading authority on WWII baseball. In November 2007, I was invited - as a keynote speaker and panel moderator - to the When Baseball Went to War conference at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which was attended by Bob Feller, Tommy Lasorda, Johnny Pesky, Jerry Coleman and many others. In 2008, I was a contributing author for the book celebrating this event - When Baseball Went to War (Chicago, IL: Triumph 2008). In 2009, "Baseball's Dead of World War II" was published by McFarland, a culmination of many years' research into 127 former professional baseball players who lost their lives in military service during World War II.