A pair of Cayman baseball players, competing in the UK’s National Baseball League, helped the London Mets win their eighth title in a row, after defeating the Essex Arrows 7-4 in the final last month.
James Green and Chris Messer, who won championships in Cayman’s Little League, can now add the NBL title to their early accomplishments – a dream come true for both.
For Green, the win was so much more satisfying because Messer, who he played with as a kid, was once again his teammate.
“I think one of the most incredible parts of this whole thing is that when I tried out for the Mets, I was told that the team had an absolute ace of a pitcher who really was the best in the league,” Green told the Compass.
“When I get to my first practice … the fabled player that everyone has been talking about was Chris … the guy I had known my whole life and played with as a kid. I had no idea he was playing for the Mets when I first reached out.”
The Mets – a semi-professional baseball club under the British Baseball Federation – are arguably the most successful team in the NBL, with their most recent victory making them 11-time champions.
Both Green and Messer played internationally for Cayman in US and Puerto Rico tournaments.
Messer was also shocked that two kids who grew up playing baseball on an island in the Caribbean would meet again years later in the UK.
“Never would I have thought James and I, after playing Little League in Cayman together and both moving to different countries as kids, we would be reunited in England, of all places, to be playing once again together,” Messer said. “It seems like a full-circle baseball moment.”
‘Perfecting my craft’
Messer, who was born and raised in Cayman to Canadian parents, explained that his father, who played college baseball, got him into the sport while he was coaching Little League in Cayman.
“[That’s a] big reason why I started playing and excelled in the sport years down the road,” Messer told the Compass.
It’s a journey that has included many successes. Outside of his championships in Cayman and with the Mets, Messer won a Canadian Junior National Championship and a Canadian National Championship with Prairie Baseball Academy in Lethbridge, Alberta.
While he was studying law in university, Messer was approached by the Toronto Blue Jays, the Major League Baseball team he has supported since he was a child, but opted to put his education first and headed off to London instead.
“I decided the best route was to pursue baseball while earning my degree,” Messer said.
His decision enabled him to join the Mets and he was even called up to represent Great Britain in the 2023 European Baseball Championship in the Czech Republic, where they finished as runners up, a tournament he remembers all too well.
“In the finals, I threw four scoreless innings to give us a chance, but we fell short.”
Messer, however, doesn’t bask too much in his accomplishments. Instead, he is looking to what’s next, and his bucket list in the sport is ambitious.
“The London Mets is a great opportunity to continue playing the sport I love while pursuing and perfecting my craft for the next European Championships in 2025, in the hopes of playing in the World Baseball Classic in 2026,” he said, adding that he is also open to accepting professional opportunities in the US.
Green, who also competed as an amateur boxer, added that his focus after completing his rookie season with the Mets, is to keep improving, get more playing time and make a bigger name for himself in the sport.
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