An All-Star team of Major Leaguers who have played in Great Britain
British baseball fans all long for MLB teams to play a game or two on our shores in the near future. MLB has taken regular season and pre-season games out of North America in the recent past to help spread the baseball gospel and it would be incredible if it could happen.
The major obstacle to the plan is that we do not have a baseball-dedicated stadium over here. Games have been played at other types of venue, mainly cricket grounds, football/soccer stadiums and even greyhound stadiums, but the result is always something of a compromise for the players and, most importantly, the spectators.
So that dream will have to wait and we will look on with envy as NFL fans enjoy further regular season games in the UK and NBA and NHL fans hope for more games in the future (these sports can be accomodated much more easily in soccer stadiums and indoor arenas).
Yet baseball has visited the British Isles in the past, from the Big League Tour in 1874 and the famous Spalding World Tour of 1888-1889 to a Minor League game in 1993.
Josh Chetwynd (co-presenter of the much-missed MLB coverage in the UK and author of two McFarland publications: British Baseball and the West Ham Club, and Baseball in Europe) has written an article compiling an All-Star team of players who have appeared on British soil over the years. Featuring greats such as Willie Stargell, Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, Sam ‘Wahoo’ Crawford, Bob Feller and AG Spalding, it makes for an impressive team. More importantly, Josh’s article explains how every player ‘qualifies’ for the list, charting an interesting history of baseball’s visits to the UK.
The article has been written for Project Cobb (the Project for the Chronicling of British Baseball) and can be found at BaseballGB.co.uk.
BaseballGB on MLBlogs 