Meet the Salem Red Sox skipper making international baseball history

You get the sense that Liam Carroll could be comfortable anywhere. That's a necessary trait for the bearded manager, who has carved out the kind of baseball career that has no antecedent: The former Team Great Britain manager, who guided the nation from the 2016 World Baseball Classic qualifiers through the 2019 European Championships, is now the manager for the Salem Red Sox, Boston's High-A affiliate in the Carolina League.

With the wind whipping around the field and Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains nestled comfortably behind Salem's own Green Monster-esque outfield wall, you couldn't get much farther away from where Carroll first dreamed of playing pro baseball while growing up in London, England.

"British baseball is advanced citizenship, the fields aren't great," Carroll told MLB.com. "You're setting up your own fence for most clubs on a Sunday before you play. And after the game, you're taking the fence down. It makes for really long days."

That Carroll has devoted his life to this sport -- crisscrossing the Atlantic and doing every sort of job in, on or around the ballfield possible -- can be attributed to his father, himself a Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson fanatic.

"He moved from New York to Dublin and then eventually to London, where he met my mother. She's British," Carroll said. "I grew up in the faith. I just didn't necessarily know that I would become a man of the cloth."

That Carroll's job now requires him to wear the words "Red Sox" across the front of his uniform is something the manager can hardly believe. Though there are some coaches scattered around the Minors, Carroll is likely the only European-developed ballplayer to manage in Minor League history.

"I grew up playing baseball," Carroll said. "And like any kid that plays baseball, I wanted to play in big leagues. I learned quite early in my career that was never going to happen. And at the time, professional baseball was so closed to non-professional players that I didn't think it would ever be an opportunity for me."

It wasn't even easy for Carroll to play the sport as a child. While there are enough baseball-loving expats living in and around London, Carroll says there are only small pockets of the sport outside the nation's capital.

"By the time we moved out of London and lived in Somerset, there was no baseball in the town we lived in," Carroll said. "I would travel on the weekends to play for a youth team in Bracknell, which is west of London."

He suited up for a variety of clubs, including the Bracknell Blazers, Brighton Buccaneers, and later coached and played with the London Mets -- the best team in British baseball history. He played baseball at Porterville College and coached with UNLV in the United States.

So, when current GB manager Drew Spencer came forward and asked Carroll if he would be willing to handle the team's logistical duties as GM before this past spring's World Baseball Classic, Carroll didn't hesitate.

"To finally be [at the World Baseball Classic] is huge and to be invited by Drew to be on staff, while also getting permission from the Red Sox to be involved during my first Spring Training, I would have worn any hat they asked me to," Carroll said.

For his part, Spencer can't say enough wonderful things about the Salem Red Sox skipper.

"People use the phrase 'Student of the game,'" Spencer said. "I've never met anybody who was more of a student of the game than Liam. There's not a single action, movement, or thought process that happens in baseball -- on or off the field -- that he hasn't studied at length and created a spreadsheet for; that he can use to get the two or three most important insights you need to make things more efficient and give the players the best chance of success."

It is precisely that skill and Carroll's ability to handle all variety of people, personalities and crisis that appealed to the Red Sox. He took Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting with the Boston brass, outlining his vision and emphasizing his talents before they handed him the reins to one of the team's most prospect-rich affiliates.

"I think I have experience with different types of players, which kind of speaks to [High-A] ball," Carroll said. "We've got players from all over and players experiencing full season [baseball] for the first time and in a different situation, which is something I'm very much used to. It seems like with the national team, every time we played, it was a different situation. And then the diversity piece: For players to experience different outlooks, different voices with different backgrounds, I think we have that in spades in the organization, people with different backgrounds. I'm just honored and privileged to be considered worthy to be one of those different voices."

There is a learning curve, though. Carroll is now at the park every single day, working with these players through the ups and downs of their careers instead of only seeing them for a handful of weeks every year. He's trying to help these players improve incrementally instead of going all-in during a single tournament.

"Here, the game is just such a small part of the day. It's different in having those opportunities, having really good resources, having all kinds of expertise in different areas," Carroll said." And then the game, it's for the players to go out and see if things are working and then go back to the drawing board if we need to tomorrow."

With so many young players -- some not even 20 years old yet -- Carroll knows his job is more than simply maximizing their tools out on the field. He has to be one part manager, one part teacher.

"We want these players to have the best chance to get into Fenway Park, but we also want them to be good citizens," Carroll said. "I think that's a theme that runs through the organization as a whole, too, as we want to help these phenomenal kids become even better human beings."

Carroll's job comes at an opportune time for British and European baseball. This March, Great Britain defeated Colombia, ensuring the nation's place in the 2026 World Baseball Classic tournament. Italy reached the quarterfinals, and the Czech Republic earned the respect of Shohei Ohtani and, seemingly, all of Japan, too.

"The caliber of play everywhere gets so much better, and the Czechs are a good example. The caliber of their domestic league and their facilities -- it's phenomenal and something for us in Great Britain to aspire to," Carroll said. "Especially in tournament baseball where anything can happen on any given day, you can't go into the World Baseball Classic or the Euros if you're the traditional power, thinking you're gonna win, because it's hard. Everyone's good at baseball around the world."

Though baseball's popularity has tended to go through cycles in England, everyone associated with Great Britain baseball knows this is a time to capitalize. The London Series is back this weekend and passion for the sport is high, while the recently announced Legacy Programme will help bring the sport to more children and adults all over the country.

Carroll is now not just a part of that program, but he is also a symbol of what players can aspire to be and a resource for everyone following in his path.

"How valuable is it for the manager of the New York Yankees to be able to call up former New York Yankees managers and talk to them about their experiences?" Spencer asked. "Or a high school coach who moves up to the college level to be able to call buddies of his that have coached at the college level and to gain from their experience? For the first time in history, British baseball coaches have a guy that they can call up, who can talk from experience about managing nine innings every day at a professional level. We've never had that in history."

Before Carroll shifts his focus from England to the nine players who will take the field in Virginia, he tells me what went through his head when he donned his Salem Red Sox uniform before his first game in charge. He wanted to slow it all down and enjoy the moment, while simultaneously thanking all the people who made this possible.

"While I am potentially the only British born-and-bred player and coach to have this opportunity, there's been many that have been deserving," Carroll said. "They blazed the trail. I was just aware there might be some people watching and hopefully [I did them] proud. Hopefully for the ones that are coming next, they'll have the opportunity one day, too."