Josh Chetwynd

Joshua Chetwynd

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 195 lb.
• School Northwestern University

• Born September 11, 1971 in London England

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Josh Chetwynd has had a long and wide-ranging career in baseball.

Chetwynd was born in the United Kingdom but grew up in the United States. He played four years of NCAA Division I baseball at Northwestern University and was named to Academic All-Big Ten teams twice. After college, he played in the Frontier League for the 1993 Zanesville Greys. Looking to continue his baseball career in 1996, he e-mailed the British Baseball Federation to see if there were opportunities to play ball in his homeland. Kevin Macadam, the vice president of the BBF, promptly invited Chetwynd to play for the British national team in the 1996 European Championship B-Pool; Chetwynd hit .412 with a .706 slugging percentage as Great Britain went on to win Gold and get back into the A Pool.

Chetwynd would spend 10 years playing for the British national squad. He was 4 for 15 with a double and a hit by pitch in the 1999 European Championship and had a 0-1, 7.71 record on the mound. In the 2001 European Championship, the catcher batted .353/.389/.412 for the second-best average on Great Britain. Chetwynd was 4 for 18 with a .364 OBP in the 2003 European Championship.

In 2003, Chetwynd also played in the Elitserien in Sweden, helping Oskarshamn BSK to a share of the regular season title and to a spot in the Swedish Cup finals before they fell. He finished among the league leaders in average (.438, 5th), hits (32, tied for 7th) and RBI (20, tied for 12th). He backed up Ian Young at 1B for Britain in the 2005 European Championship, going 0 for 8 with 3 times hit by pitch and playing error-free defense; Matt Stockmann was the catcher by now.

Chetwynd has also played and coached in Britian's top league. He served as player/manager for the London Mets in 2007 and 2008, winning back-to-back national championships. In 2009, he won a third national championship as a member of the Bracknell Blazers. Over six seasons in Britain, Chetwynd hit .440/.504/.525. In 2016, he came out of retirement from European baseball to play his final games of any kind with Great Britain's Southampton Mustangs in the Confederation of European Baseball 2016 Federations Cup. He went 4 for 6 with 3 RBI and an HBP as the Mustangs made the finals, losing to CB Sant Boi.

A journalist, Chetwynd has covered Major League Baseball for British television and radio. He also served as the color commentator for telecasts of the 2013 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers held in Regensburg, Germany in 2012. Broadcasts aired on, among other outlets, the MLB Network and Sportsnet in Canada. In addition, he served on the board of the British Baseball Federation for a period and also worked for more than a year as a communications executive in MLB's London office. In 2009, he held the role of General Manager (as well as MLB-appointed travel manager) for the South African team at the World Baseball Classic. In 2007, he started and has subsequently complied the annual Mister-Baseball European Top 50, which ranks the top performing teams in European club baseball each year.

In addition, Chetwynd, who holds two law degrees, has negotiated a number of contracts on behalf of European amateur free agents with Major League teams. Players he's represented include Gift Ngoepe (Pirates), Matz Schutte (Twins), Stijn van der Meer (Astros), Paul Brands (Pirates), Rodney Daal (Padres), Lars Huijer (Mariners), Danny Arribas (Pirates) and Scott Ronnenbergh (Mariners). In 2013, he brokered the largest contract in the history of European baseball ($1.3 million) for Marten Gasparini (Royals).

Chetwynd has authored two books on baseball: British Baseball and the West Ham Club: History of a 1930s Professional Team in East London (co-authored) and Baseball in Europe. In 2011, he released a book called The Secret History of Balls discussing baseballs among many other types of balls. His 2016 book, The Field Guide to Sports Metaphors featured a section on idioms, words and phrases used in everyday conversation that started in or were popularized through baseball.

He was inducted into the British Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 in a class with Cody Cain and Alan Smith.

Sources

• Big Ten Baseball Record Book
• SABR database
• 1996 European B-Pool Championship statistics
• International baseball statistician Harry Wedemeijer
• Author's introduction to Baseball in Europe
• 2003 Elitserien leaders
• British National Team Statistics
• British Baseball Statistics
• Mister-Baseball European Top 50
• Statistics from 2016 CEB Federations Cup Qualifier - Pool 2[1]
• Elite Sports Group [2]
• Correspondence with Mr. Chetwynd

Further Reading

• Josh Chetwynd: Baseball in Europe: A Country By Country History, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2008.
• Josh Chetwynd and Brian A. Belton: British Baseball and the West Ham Club: History of a 1930s Professional Team in East London, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2007.
• Josh Chetwynd: The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce and Bat, Perigee Books, Penguin Group (USA), New York, NY, 2011. ISBN 978-0399536748
• Josh Chetwynd: The Field Guide to Sports Metaphors: A Compendium of Competitive Words and Idioms, Penguin Random House, New York, NY, 2016. ISBN 978-1-60774-811-3