Monthly Archives: August 2009

Great Britain’s 40-man World Cup roster is announced

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Great Britain Baseball

Great Britain Baseball

Great Britain announced their 40-man preliminary roster for the 2009 Baseball World Cup yesterday.  The roster is built around the core of the 2007 European Championship silver medal team, including tournament MVP Brant Ust and catcher Mike Nickeas, and features players currently competing in leagues in North America, Europe and here in Britain.

The 40-man roster will be reduced to twenty-four when the tournament begins on 9 September.  Team GB’s first game is scheduled for 10 September, when they will take on Japan in Zagreb, Croatia.  Continue reading →

Early MLB games this week: Ten to choose from

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After another exciting weekend of MLB action, we’ve got ten early games to look forward to this working week.  What’s more, those ten games involve twenty different teams, giving British fans of two-thirds of the MLB teams a chance to watch their chosen side live at a convenient time.  There’s one early game today, three on Wednesday and six on ‘getaway’ Thursday.

All times are in BST.  Continue reading →

This Week in MLB

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ThisWeekMLBFirstly, this writer would like to apologize for this column’s non-appearance last week. Unfortunately, I found myself to be yet another victim of this tough economy and got laid-off from my full-time job, so writing this was hardly a priority last weekend. Hopefully, I’ll try and get back to a regular weekly schedule from now on, and with so much baseball action to discuss, let’s roll on…

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Sunday’s early MLB game schedule

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As always, there is plenty of baseball to enjoy live during Sunday evening in the UK.  The two later games are Dodgers-Braves at 01.00 (Billingsley versus Jurrjens) and Mariners-Rangers at 01.05 (Snell and Feldman).  The first of those two is scheduled to be shown live on ESPN America.  Presumably the launch of the new ESPN channel tomorrow (with ESPN America moving to new channel number on Sky and Virgin Media) won’t have any impact on this, but it might be worth checking if you want to record the game.

18.05. Tigers @ Indians – Galarraga (5-9), Pavano (8-8)
18.10. D-Backs @ Mets – Garland (5-10), Pelfrey (8-6)
18.10. Rockies @ Reds – Marquis (12-7), Arroyo (10-10)
18.35. Red Sox @ Orioles – Buchholz (1-1), Hill (3-3)
18.35. Nationals @ Pirates – Balester (1-1), Maholm (6-5)
18.38. Royals @ Rays – Bannister (6-7), Shields (6-7)
19.05. Yankees @ White Sox – Sabathia (10-7), Buehrle (11-4)
19.10. Angels @ Twins – Weaver (10-3), Perkins (6-6)
19.15. Astros @ Cardinals – Norris (0-0), Wainwright (12-6)
21.05. Brewers @ Padres – Villanueva (2-8), Correia (7-8)
21.05. Phillies @ Giants – Hamels (7-5), Zito (6-10)
21.05. Blue Jays @ A’s – Romero (9-4), Mazzaro (2-7)
22.05. Cubs @ Marlins – Dempster (5-5), Nolasco (7-7)

All times in BST.  Continue reading →

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Trade deadline deals

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The non-waiver trade deadline on Friday 31 July 2009 will be remembered for many reasons.  It wasn’t just the deals and non-deals that made it memorable, but also the way the news was circulated and commented on.  Twitter came to the fore as baseball fans around the world became fully absorbed in the rumoured and confirmed trades, with MLB.com recognising the trend and incorporating fans’ ‘tweets’ into their online coverage.

There was certainly lots to tweet about.  Continue reading →

Saturday’s early MLB game schedule

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21.00. Dodgers @ Braves – Wolf (5-5), Lowe (10-7)
21.05. Yankees @ White Sox – Burnett (10-4), Danks (8-7)
21.10. Royals @ Rays – Chen (0-5), Niemann (9-5).

All times in BST.

Most teams are following the frantic trade deadline activity yesterday with a night game today, meaning that we only have three live games during the British evening.  Continue reading →

ESPN America continues in the UK: further reaction

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Last night’s news that ESPN America will continue to be available on British screens came as a considerable relief.  The espn.co.uk website has been updated slowly over the past week with new sports being added to their roster, while an actual schedule has still not been published.  All of which raised fears that MLB and other North American sports would be shoehorned onto the new football-dominated channel, battling for spare time slots alongside French League Rugby and German Touring Car races.

Combined with the continuing lack of free-to-air coverage of MLB, the result would have been little short of disastrous.  Continue reading →