The two-foot long, £24 “Boomstick” hot dog. The mascot race won by a giant-headed Freddie Mercury. The hearty rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Oh, and runs: lots and lots of runs. America’s pastime has arrived in the UK, as the New York Yankees beat their old rivals the Boston Red Sox 17-13 at the London Stadium in the first ever Major League Baseball game to be played on these shores – the first of what they hope will be many, with a rematch on Sunday to come.
Casual fans be warned, this was not a typical baseball game. Both teams average a little over five runs a game this season and the Yankees’ 17 runs is their most since July 2015, 562 games ago. It was also long: the game finally ended after four hours and 42 minutes, three minutes shy of the longest nine-inning game ever. Make your own mind up as to whether that is a good or bad first impression.
The heatwave that has been melting most of Europe made it a sweaty affair but concerns about the stadium – that a venue originally built for athletics, clumsily repurposed for football, would not be suitable for baseball – were broadly unfounded. Aside from the vast amount of foul territory (the area behind the baselines in which batters can be caught but cannot score runs) it seemed to fit the purpose nicely: whisper it, but baseball looked more at home here than football ever has.
A couple of slight worries for the long-term promotion of the game in the UK did occur. First the attendance: despite proud brags that tickets sold out within hours of going on sale, they have been pretty easy to come by in recent weeks and one could still buy them an hour before the first pitch. The crowd was extremely healthy but pockets of empty seats were dotted around the stands and the cynical might suggest it does not bode well if a game between the sport’s two biggest teams cannot be sold out.
The provenance of those in attendance might be an issue, too. The official line was that 70% of the tickets were sold inside the UK but the majority of accents heard were American, the media desks were broadly filled with Americans and even the 340 tonnes of dirt that made up the infield was American, shipped in. A rare concession to Englishness lay in the men dispensing Pimm’s from chilled backpacks but it felt as if the whole operation had been lifted straight from the States and dropped into east London.
For a sport that has historically been insular, the goal is now long-term global expansion. They say this jaunt to London is just the start, with another planned for next year (the Chicago Cubs v the St Louis Cardinals) and then India, China and who knows where else. But it is hardly global expansion if the bulk of the crowd is just here on holiday from New York and Boston.
The good news is that they could barely have asked for a more eye-catching game. The Yankees flew out of the blocks, scoring six runs in the first inning, extending their record streak of hitting at least one home run in 30 straight games, when Aaron Hicks flayed one over the right field fence.
The Red Sox starting pitcher, Rick Porcello, suffered the indignity of being pulled out of the game having got only one batter out: ideally starters go five or six innings, occasionally all nine. Off Porcello slunk, shoulders slumped, having travelled 3,230 miles for 20 minutes of humiliation.
But he was not alone. His Yankees counterpart, Masahiro Tanaka, joined him in being spanked all over the park and by the time he, too, was hooked, having sent only two Red Sox batters on their way, the scores were level. It was the first time in 30 years that neither starter has made it out of the first inning, and not since 1912 have both teams given up six runs in the first.
The scoring kept coming, a phalanx of elite pitchers on both sides seemingly forgetting how to pitch, and in the fourth inning MLB’s PR machine got its big highlight, when the absolutely vast Yankees right-fielder Aaron Judge crushed a two-run homer to put the Yankees 14-6 ahead. Judge is, in more ways than one, MLB’s big hope of marketing the sport around a single personality, such as LeBron James or Tom Brady, and they will be happy if he contributes to more run-fests like this.
The crowd began trickling into the muggy night from the sixth inning and, despite a late Red Sox rally which helped drag the game on to historic lengths, the Yankees held on. So baseball is here. But is it here to stay?