Tomorrow marks the start of the British baseball season, with teams and officials up and down the country eager to get back into action. The weather forecast looks a bit gloomy, but hopefully the rain will stay away in most places allowing the games to be played.
To coincide with the opening weekend, the British Baseball Federation (BBF) has published the latest issue of Baseball Bulletin (pdf), which brings you all the latest news about baseball in the UK. This includes a recap of the 2007 season and details about all the changes for 2008, such as the re-naming of the divisions under the National League. They will now follow the AAA, AA, A format that baseball fans are used to from the Minor League set-up in the States.
As well as the usual ‘admin’ information (updates from the AGM held in March, details on approved baseball bats for the upcoming season etc), there are a host of positive articles about Brits getting involved with baseball. People like Liam Carroll and Will Lintern, who played university baseball in the States while earning their degrees before coming back to Britain and taking up coaching roles to pass on their knowledge to young Brits. David Synnott took the courageous step of moving to America to follow his baseball dreams and has now signed a letter of intent to go to a college in Nebraska, while a report on the British Baseball Academy’s recent trip to Arizona gives you a real sense of what a great experience it must have been for the nineteen players.
Joe Gray’s excellent article on long-time British scorer Brian Holland is reproduced in the Baseball Bulletin, as is my article on Joe and the Great Britain Baseball Scorers Association (note that there is now one inaccuracy in it, with the season starting date having changed). I was more than happy to give them permission to include it and if you’re visiting BaseballGB for the first time as a result of reading the Bulletin, thanks for stopping by.
Lots more information about British baseball can be found on the BBF website, including links to all of the teams. If you’re itching to give baseball a go (or even just to watch) and don’t think there are any opportunities to do so locally, check out their website and the accompanying BaseballSoftballUK website. There may well be a baseball set-up within a reasonable distance from where you live that you don’t know exists.
You can find links to team websites on the BBF site. Two that caught my eye were the Herts Baseball Club website, a very professional looking site with lots of interesting content, and the website for the wonderfully named Bolton Robots of Doom!
While it may get very little publicity in the general scheme of things, there is plenty of baseball out there for you to enjoy. We’ll be covering it here at BaseballGB throughout the 2008 season and beyond.
UPDATE: The Mister-Baseball website will also be covering the British league, alongside their great coverage of European baseball. You can read their preview on the upcoming season here.