Baseball rarely graces the realm of the BBC, so people tuning in to Radio Four yesterday morning would have been surprised to hear stories of Fenway Park and the Boston Red Sox coming out over the airwaves. Any thoughts that the bandwidth had been hijacked by an American station would also have been put to rest quickly by the unmistakably English accent of the presenter. Â
The voice was that of distinguished historian Simon Schama and he was narrating a programme called ‘Baseball and Me’, a two-part series in which Schama discusses his fondness for the game. While the second instalment next Saturday will focus on the origins of the sport, the first was dedicated to Schama’s relationship with the Red Sox: the team that made him fall in love with baseball back in 1981.
UK-based readers can listen again to the documentary for the next six days via the BBC iPlayer and doing so is an enjoyable way to spend half an hour. We join Schama on a pilgrimage to Fenway Park, a home from home that he describes as “a perfect oasis of beauty and excitement”.Â
It’s a place where the sizzle of the hot dogs sounds like “chamber music”, the grass is “eye-poppingly, iris-burningly green” and the scoreboard operator scrambles in the inner sanctum of the Green Monster, like the bell-ringer in a church. Schama describes baseball as a world containing “layers of memories and traditions” and perhaps no place on earth captures this better than Fenway.Â
While I don’t imagine thousands of Radio Four listeners will be rushing out to buy a baseball glove, such positive coverage can only be a good thing for the sport. Hearing Schama describe baseball as “the most beautiful, difficult, complicated but heart-stoppingly thrilling game in the world” can’t fail to make at least a few people want to find out more.Â
From tiny acorns …
British baseball fans: we know you’re out thereÂ
The revelation that Schama is a baseball fan is not surprising considering he has lived in the States for so long, but it does provide another bit of proof that Brits are not hardwired to dislike the sport. All you need is an open mind, although sadly that basic requirement is absent from many when it comes to baseball.
Still, the more you look, the more baseball-loving Brits you will find. Viewers of MLB on Five will know about the likes of Phil Jupitus and Colin Murray and various footballers/cricketers who have been mentioned on the show, although I believe the rumours (started by Johnny Gould) that Prince Harry is a fan turned out to be false.
One place where you can find a few more Brits is on the MLB.com MLBlogs network. A quick search has uncovered Rays from across the Pond, the Yankees Scottish Princess, Let’s Go Red Sox and The View from the UK. If you find any more, please pass on the links.
As part of promoting the presence of baseball fans in Britain, I’ve also started a blog on the network this weekend. I will be writing about being a baseball fan in Blighty while working in links to content from here at BaseballGB. Why not take a look, or perhaps set up your own blog on the network as well.
The new MLB.tv media player
The new Flash-based MLB.tv media player has been launced in beta mode. Yesterday was the first chance I had to use it, during the USA-Canada game, and the first impressions were positive.Â
Everything in the player works smoothly as the additional features blend seamlessly into the main window and the video screen resizes instantly when needed.  These are things that were promised as part of the Silverlight player, but they never really worked quite as they were advertised.
It’s often the little touches, rather than the flashy features, that make all the difference and it looks like this will be the case here. There is a neat scoreboard panel that displays on the right-hand side of the player, which will make tracking games very easy once the regular season begins. Click the cross, it disappears and ‘ping’ the video screen automatically resizes. It’s not complicated or clever, but it’s useful and it works well.  Â
The same goes for the box score and summary boxes, which slide up from the bottom of the player and are slightly transparent so you can still see the video behind them.Â
The settings box doesn’t change anything at the moment, but when fully operational there will be too features here that could prove very useful. One is to set up ‘alert bubbles’ that will tell you when highlights from games are available (as seen last year in the Gameday application). The other is the option to hide the scores of games that have been completed, helping you to avoid the annoying experience of seeing a score from a game you hoped to look at later.
All in all, a very promising beginning.
Honkball happiness
The new media player is being trialled in select WBC games currently, with features gradually being added in. Unfortunately it wasn’t available for the Netherlands-Dominican Republic game yesterday, but a new media player wasn’t needed to make that a special event. The Dutch pulled off a stunning 3-2 victory, leading to some wonderful celebratory scenes. The team did both their country and the continent of Europe proud.
Hi there, you forgot to mention on Famous Brit, who I think might surprise a few people. AS a longtime watcher of the Yankees, I seem to recall watching atleast two games where Paul McCartney was in attendence. One game, was game four of the 2001 American League Championship series which was broadcast on FOX. Through out the game, the cameras spent almost as much time on him as they did the on the game itself. They even showed Paul drink a bottle of Budwieser. I also recall another game around 2005 or 2006 where Paul was in attendance, this game was shown on the YES Network. This really shouldn’t be all that surprising since McCartney is from Liverpool where a form of British Baseball is played. He’s also been coming over to the States on a regular Basis since the Beatles “I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND” first appeared on the Pop Charts back in 1964. My Guess is that George was also a baseball fan, and I base this on no particular reason than his sister married and American and raised her family in St. Louis. If you’ve ever seen the movie HELP, you’ll notice a sceen in the film where the band is being chased through a baseball diamond by Leo McKern’s band of Religious Fanatics.
Btw I saw that game between the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic. I was more than please that the Netherlands won that game. I was great victory. I think they have a chance to advance now. However, time will tell.
I remember the most recent McCartney visit, now that you mention it Joe. He got a good reception from what I recall.
Btw, who are these cricket and footballers who’ve become fans. I know David Beckham visted the Yankees Clubhouse a couple of years ago when they were in Toronto.
No one famous football-wise. Some of the cricketers follow the sport though, as evidenced by the amount of baseball lingo that gets used in the commentary.
I would be very much interested in listening to Mr. Shama’s two part series on baseball. But alas, living here in the United States, I’m unable to listen to the iviewer. Is there anything I can do to listen to this series. It sounds interesting. I’ve seen his American Future: A History and was impressed.
The Simon Schama program was a really pleasant surprise. It’s always nice to find little champions of baseball here and there, especially when they’re given as big a soap-box as BBC Radio. So long as the controller of Radio 4 is a passionate Red Sox fan, I’ll live in hope that there’s more where that came from. Perhaps he’ll even be able to put in a good word for the BBC to take up coverage of MLB if Five do drop it completely.
As for the Dutch game, it’s great to see Europeans pleasantly surprising people Stateside. Lets hope they continue to surprise pleasantly, and lets hope that if the WBC is expanded next time and includes the British team, we can put in a similarly impressive performance.
Thanks again for pointing out the program on Twitter, Thomas. I might have missed it otherwise!
Joe C: I’m afraid I don’t know any work-arounds for non-UK residents.