New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox: London yawning?

The announcement of the New York Yankees – Boston Red Sox series in London in June 2019 engendered once again my ordinary reaction to announcements about American teams in any sport visiting the United Kingdom: Why?

Oh, I had heard the arguments before, and they have trotted out again with a new twist. Rather than expanding a “footprint” as the NFL does every time they subject two of their teams to trans-Atlantic travel, the New York Yankees – Boston Red Sox series will be “breaking new ground,” to use Dayn Perry’s language.

The games June 29 and 30 in London Stadium in Olympic Park will be a high profile introduction of baseball to the UK at its potentially most spectacular. This will not be like sending the Buccaneers and Bears to England as the NFL did in 2011. Assuming both the Bombers and Sawks hang onto most of their stars for a little more than a year, Londoners may well see Mookie Betts, Chris Sale, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, as well as another handful of very high-level players.

But that brings me back to my question, and I’ll put it another way. Will Londoners even care, and if so, will they root, root, root for the home team (Boston for this series) or the (um, other) visitors?

I endeavored to find out. The first fact that stood out was also included in Perry’s article on CBSSports.com: Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that London was picked for this series because its mayor, Sadiq Khan, is the only European mayor who has thrown out the first pitch in a baseball game.

Perry decided this was a joke, but it was also a sort of truth – if you trust Manfred to have done an accurate study of all European mayors. Unfortunately, it functioned poorly as either joke or truth. Whether or not Manfred smiled, his remark is not actually a joke, and since Khan did, in fact, throw out a pitch at a Mets game about two years ago, then clearly, he’s the very best European available to throw a small sphere about 55 feet. Once.

OK, OK, the Commissioner is allowed a lame joke and a business junket.

I turned to UK MLB Fans (@UK_MLB_Fans), a Twitter feed dedicated to UK baseball fans. March 8, 2018, must have been a big day for them. The first item was a retweet of a story about Toronto reliever Roberto Osuna being charged with assault. Hmmm.

The second was, in fact, a tweet about the Yankees and Red Sox, and its author, Will Lintern, could barely contain himself, writing: “Given today’s announcement I thought it might be worth sharing again my thoughts ‘The potential impact of MLB games to be played in London in 2019.’” Then there was a link to a self-published article on LinkedIn from March. Hoo-boy.

Mr. Lintern, as it turns out, is a “Baseball and Cricket Coach & Sports Development Consultant” who’s somewhat excited about the potential series he was writing about six weeks ago. He was hopeful then it would help publicize the fact that there already are British baseball clubs and teams “most people” don’t realize exist. His article included a photo with about a hundred or so people in it. Two were wearing Blue Jays shirts. Another guy had on a USA basketball jersey and a 49ers cap. No Yankees, no Red Sox.

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Another tweet in the top 10 on the feed about 4 p.m. involved a YouTube video of a reporter asking a panel who was better, Betts or Judge. I think everybody on the panel was awake.

Several other top tweets were low-key, factual announcements of the series. Just outside the top 10 posts at that hour was a tweet with a link to tickets for the series.

The British aren’t the driving force behind Yankees and Red Sox t-shirt sales right now, but there is some very British enthusiasm for baseball. That this excitement is so low-key it may not appear to be breathing at times should not be taken as, well, not breathing.

All of this leaves us with the second question posed many paragraphs ago. Who will be favored between the Red Stockings and the Bronx Bombers by Londoners? On the designated home team’s side there was all that tea being dumped in the harbor, and that whole thing about Paul Revere, his horse, and those lanterns, but that was so long ago, right?

As to the term “Yankee,” my studies tell me its origin is obscure. It possibly comes from the Dutch word “Janke,” or “Little John.” It seems to have arisen in the mid-18^th century, and Yankees was, at the time of the American Revolution, a semi-nasty term about colonials. The term’s history does, however, provide a song for Red Sox fans in London next June, whether English or American.

These were the alternate lyrics for “Yankee Doodle Dandy” from way back in the day: “Yankee Doodle came to town / For to buy a firelock / We will tar and feather him / And so we will John Hancock.”

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The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees now have the opportunity to whip up enthusiasm across the pond for this series. Which team will sell the most jerseys and hats? They have a bit more than a year to work on that.

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