London’s MLB crowd offers baseball a new land of opportunity | Matthew Engel


Fans flocked to the Red Sox-Yankees clash in their droves to guzzle hot dogs, belt out YMCA – and see a sublime opening

Baseball makes cricket look like an almost stat-free zone. This weekend in London records have been falling over themselves with a regularity that probably constituted a record in itself.

But the one that will resound through Major League Baseball’s executive suite is this: its first two games played in Europe drew the sport’s highest attendances in 16 years. US baseball no longer even has a stadium that can hold 60,000 spectators, never mind fill it, near as dammit, in mid-season. So by coming to London the sport seems to be on to something – if not big, then at least a regular sideshow.

Related: New York Yankees double up on Boston Red Sox to clinch London series

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