Major League Baseball hopes their London games will be a home run.
If you’re hoping to root, root for the home team, then you’ll love this news. Major League Baseball has announced plans to hold games in London, starting next year, meaning that the UK finally gets a chance to enjoy ‘America’s Pastime’. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, fierce rivals since the sport’s inception, will slug it out for bragging rights on June 29th & 30th, 2019.
The longtime foes will take the field at London Stadium, which has hosted the Olympics and West Ham games, but will be turned into a baseball diamond for the event. To call the Yankees and the Red Sox rivals is a bit of an understatement: they maintain one of the fiercest rivalries in sports, with a conflict that dates back decades and has seen the odd on-pitch brawl at games.
Speaking of rivalries, the London series will pitch baseball head to head against the other sport with bats, innings, and runs. The cricket World Cup will be held in the UK throughout summer 2019, meaning we can settle the baseball-cricket question once and for all. I’m envisaging a West Side Story-style faceoff, except with more bats and fewer dance numbers. Expect this budding rivalry to get more intense if the MLB realises their ambition to locate a team here permanently.
Baseball isn’t the only US sport making a play to crack the UK. The NFL plays games in London every year, and rumours continue to swirl that we’ll get our own American football team if the US takeover of Wembley goes ahead. Meanwhile, basketball games are played at the O2 arena each year, meaning that almost all of the major US sports are fleeing Trump eyeing a passage to England. Will baseball capture the imagination, or will it strikeout? We’ll get our answer next year…