Yankees-Red Sox Go Across The Pond To Play “Base Ball”

The Yanks are comin’!

Major League Baseball is sending the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox to London, England in an attempt to stretch out the marketing map. The Yankees and Red Sox have been major rivals for decades and the joke in New York is who are the two favorite baseball teams in town? The answer the Yankees and the Red Sox with the New York Mets far back. The London games are probably netting MLB some heavy pounds. You don’t pull a Yankees and Red Sox home game from the Boston-New York Yankees match ups without some guarantees of big money from London organizers. Major League Baseball is following the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League in putting regular season games in London.  The NFL has scheduled four London games in a five week stretch in October and November. The National Basketball Association has no plans for a London 2019-2020 game and has moved its annual mid-season European game to Paris. The NHL seems to have given up on London and has not played a game in England since 2007. Baseball may have origins in England and in Europe and shares some similarities with two English games rounders and cricket. But it is unclear if baseball evolved from rounders but a 1744 English children’s book called Pretty Little Pocket-Book has the words Base-Ball in the text.

Major League Baseball is expanding the playing field. MLB opened the 2019 season in Japan with two matches. There were also games in Monterrey, Mexico. It is unclear whether Major League Baseball will have any presence in Tokyo during the 2020 Summer Olympics. Baseball is strong in Latin America, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia. Baseball is relatively obscure in England despite the relatives, rounders and cricket, but Major League Baseball wants pounds and the London market.