Many of the British nation are currently under the spell of Olympic-mania after last night’s Opening Ceremony.
There is undoubtedly a lot to be excited about as a sports fan; however it’s difficult not to mix in a hint of disappointment as a baseball fan.
We’ve known for a depressingly long time that our sport, alongside softball, would not be a part of London 2012, but the full impact of that is really hitting home now as we can all see just how incredible it would have been.
There’s no Olympic baseball tournament, but on Saturday evening MLB provides five games that we can watch before midnight to add to our sporting weekend. All times are in BST.
18.05. St. Louis at Chicago Cubs (Kelly – Samardzija)
18.07. Detroit at Toronto (Sanchez – Alvarez) *ESPN America
The Cardinals and Cubs were the warm-up act for my Olympic ceremony viewing last night and there was no shortage of action at Wrigley Field. The Cards won 9-6 and took Cubs starter Travis Wood deep five times. Jeff Samardzija looks to lead the fightback today. Meanwhile Anibal Sanchez makes his Tigers debut in Toronto having been acquired by Detroit in a trade with the Miami Marlins earlier this week.
21.05. Boston at NY Yankees (Lester – Sabathia) *ESPN America
21.05. LA Dodgers at San Francisco (Billingsley – Zito)
21.10. Kansas City at Seattle (Chen – Millwood)
We’ve got games from two of the great baseball rivalries starting at 21.05 and they should give us a chance to see two of the biggest names to have found new teams in the past week.
Hanley Ramirez is quickly settling into life as a Dodger and he hit a two-run homer in the tenth inning yesterday to lead his team past the Giants. Ichiro Suzuki scored two of the Yankees’ 10 runs against Boston last night as the Bronx Bombers won the first game of a series that they hope will see them push their bitter rivals even further away from playoff contention.
Fans of the Royals and Mariners likely to be the only ones turning their attention to Safeco Field rather than Yankee Stadium or AT&T Park.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com, while ESPN America has a baseball triple-header with the two games noted above being followed by Cincinnati at Colorado from 1 a.m. The full schedule for today’s games can be found on MLB.com.