05-26-2010, 10:26 AM
I come from and live in London (studied for a year at U of I), and I think it's fair to say that over here in England baseball is pretty much a non-entity.
Football (soccer), Rugby and Cricket rule, although to be perfectly honest it's basically all Football (soccer). If I'm honest, when I first started studying in the US (I think Dusty Baker was still manager) I had absolutely no interest in baseball. Way too much like cricket (actually an interesting link here about the similarities: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/surrey/hi/peop...000/8694268.stm, not sure if it's watchable outside the UK though...), and cricket was enough for me.
However I then got taken to a couple of Cubs' games, and it wasn't long before all the little things started to make sense and the brilliance of the sport became clear.
I guess with the NFL and NBA having games in London (both very very well received) it's not out of the question that the MLB will follow suit, and with ESPN America becomming available on TV here I'd say interest is on the up, but still very very small compared to "British" sports, and the NFL and NBA.
Football (soccer), Rugby and Cricket rule, although to be perfectly honest it's basically all Football (soccer). If I'm honest, when I first started studying in the US (I think Dusty Baker was still manager) I had absolutely no interest in baseball. Way too much like cricket (actually an interesting link here about the similarities: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/surrey/hi/peop...000/8694268.stm, not sure if it's watchable outside the UK though...), and cricket was enough for me.
However I then got taken to a couple of Cubs' games, and it wasn't long before all the little things started to make sense and the brilliance of the sport became clear.
I guess with the NFL and NBA having games in London (both very very well received) it's not out of the question that the MLB will follow suit, and with ESPN America becomming available on TV here I'd say interest is on the up, but still very very small compared to "British" sports, and the NFL and NBA.