London Series was a mixed bag for baseball

The Yankees may have had a tremendous series in London but Major League Baseball’s weekend wasn’t as spectacular.  Although the London fans packed London Stadium (capacity – 60,000+) and saw some of the best offensive star power on display, it’s safe to say that the London Series wasn’t the smashing success MLB wanted it to be.

Exhibit A of Major League Baseball’s shortcomings is below.  In Ryan Ruocco’s interview session, it’s certainly funny to see how clueless (no offense) some of these London fans are.  Obviously this journey across the pond is meant to grow the game and help these fans understand the game better, but there should have been some sort of pre-series seminar teaching the people of London the sport of baseball.  Obviously it’s also a huge generalization speculating that these people are in the majority, but it is what it is.

https://twitter.com/Yankees/status/1146533856121671681

The London Series was cool from an aesthetics standpoint but overall it was a bit of a drag.  The two games totaled nine and half hours and there was no real rhythm to either game.  The Yankees had 29 runs in two games which sounds nice in concept but the never-ending innings can be a bore, especially for someone who isn’t familiar with the game.

Major League Baseball ran into the same issues that they’ve faced for years;  The extremely long and winding innings don’t help build excitement towards the game.  There was no real buzz like there is for each time the NFL comes to London and although it was a success it could have been a lot better.

For the Yankees it was a business trip so it didn’t really matter what they thought of it, although there haven’t been any complaints.  At the end of the day it was a bit of a missed opportunity for baseball and two wins in the bag for the New York Yankees.