Tag Archives: Great Britain

World Baseball Classic Qualifiers in March

This time of year is always exciting for baseball fans. Pitchers and catchers started to report to MLB Spring Training camps yesterday and British baseball teams are stepping up their pre-season training ahead of their 2020 campaigns.

We have even more reason to be excited this year, though, as Great Britain will be competing in a World Baseball Classic qualifier in Arizona at the end of March.

The only problem is, there still isn’t a huge amount of detail about the event barely a month before it is due to begin.

Although rumours of the qualifiers had been out there for a while, the event was only announced officially on 28 January. The published details confirmed that 12 teams would compete across two six-team tournaments to determine the final two qualifiers for the full 2021 WBC event. Both tournaments will be staged at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Arizona.

Pool 1 takes place between 12-17 March and will consist of the following teams:

  • Brazil
  • France
  • Germany
  • Nicaragua
  • Pakistan
  • South Africa

Pool 2, the important one for us, follows this up between 20-25 March:

  • Czech Republic
  • Great Britain
  • New Zealand
  • Panama
  • Philippines
  • Spain.

Predicting international tournaments is always a challenge due to the fluid shape of the rosters from event to event and that’s especially the case for the WBC, where some Minor League prospects are released by their parent MLB team to compete.

The Great Britain programme has done an impressive job in recent years of creating an environment in which MLB teams trust them to provide a level of professionalism in how they will take care of the players. Liam Carroll’s team has benefited from some quality additions to the roster as a result in recent WBC qualifiers, not least shortstop Jazz Chisholm who was ranked by MLB Pipeline recently as the 66th best prospect in baseball.

Work will be going on behind the scenes to piece together the strongest group of Lions possible, mixing some MLB-affiliated talent with stalwarts of the Great Britain and domestic British baseball scene.

The full tournament format details can be found on MLB.com. Each pool will be comprised of a nine-game double elimination competition.

Great Britain’s first game, against the winner of Spain vs. New Zealand, will be on Saturday 21 March, although it is an evening game in Arizona and will actually start at 3.30 am for us. That’s 3.30 am on a Sunday though, which is supposed to be a day of rest and in this case can serve as a day of rest following an early start! The rest of the schedule will be determined by whether GB win that game or not.

The last two WBC qualifiers that Great Britain have been involved with have been streamed live for free on MLB.com, so hopefully that will be the same for these two events as they should provide some great action to liven up the Spring Training period.

Frustratingly, the official website still states that ticket details “will be available soon”. I’ve been contacted by several people over the past week or so, people in Arizona or those heading out there, eager to know more and having failed to receive information from other official sources. You do get the sense that this is all a bit ‘last minute’, which is a real shame considering how much these events mean to the baseball communities of the countries involved.

Fingers crossed that clarification will be forthcoming soon and, whether from Arizona or the UK, we can start planning how we can follow Great Britain’s progress.

Great Britain win but miss out on Euro Quarter-Finals

Great Britain lining-up against Germany. Photo courtesy of Paul Stodart, https://hotshot.photo
Great Britain lining-up against Germany. Photo courtesy of Paul Stodart, https://hotshot.photo

Great Britain did all they could in Germany on Wednesday, but sadly it wasn’t quite enough to earn a European Championship quarter-final place.

The Lions beat Sweden 13-7 to finish their First Round on a 2-3 win-loss record. The result left the team and their supporters waiting nervously as Germany played the Czech Republic, knowing that a win for Germany would be enough to put GB through to the quarter-finals.

Unfortunately for us, the Czech Republic had other ideas. Their 10-6 victory meant the Czechs finished 3rd in Pool A. Germany’s previous 1-0 win over GB on Sunday broke the tie between the two 2-3 teams, putting them in fourth place and Great Britain into the classification round.

I did a live-stream on Periscope/Twitter after the game and have uploaded it onto the new British Baseball Beat YouTube channel, adding in some excellent photos by Paul Stodart, who is out in Germany with the team.

https://youtu.be/caYwGXJ0_pQ

As discussed in the video, here’s how the Classification Round section is structured (all times in BST).

The tournament continues for Great Britain with a game against Austria on Thursday (10.00am BST first pitch). Follow the game live at baseballsoftball.tv.

Quarter-Finals still possible for Great Britain

Great Britain head into their final game of the First Round of the 2019 European Baseball Championships on Wednesday still in with a shout of making it to the Quarter Finals.

Tuesday’s 7-4 loss to Israel showed once again how small margins can make such a big difference in short-series tournaments.

Great Britain got off to the perfect start in Solingen, Germany, when third baseman Ben Andrews hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning, but Israel had drawn level at 3-3 when he stepped up to the plate to lead-off the bottom of the sixth.

Andrews hit a double into left-field for his third hit of the game, the second being a single in the third inning, and, after Rich Brereton struck out, he advanced to third on a wild pitch. Nate Thomas then walked and stole second base to put runners on second and third, only for Maikel Azcuy (strike-out) and Rich Klijn (pop-up to second base) to leave them stranded.

It felt like a momentum-changing situation and, unfortunately for us, that’s how it proved. Blake Gaillen hit a two-run homer in the top of the seventh inning to give Israel a 5-3 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

Although Jordan Serena quickly got one of those runs back by singling home Will Savage in the bottom of the frame, Israel scored a run in the top of the eighth before Gaillen struck again in the ninth for his second long-ball of the game and his third of the tournament so far.

A game that Great Britain might have gone on to win, against a very good Israel team, slipped away to a 7-4 defeat, just as a brilliant showing against Germany on Sunday only amounted to a 1-0 loss. Liam Carroll’s team have been close to putting together a hugely impressive First Round and whilst being so close, but so far, is frustrating, it also shows the talent and fight the team has that they put themselves into that position.

They’ll need to draw on those reserves on Wednesday to give themselves a chance of making it to the Quarter-Finals.

How things stand

Let’s deal with the second part of the day first.

Great Britain’s suspended game against the Netherlands will be completed with a ‘first’ pitch set for 17.30 UK time. The Dutch were leading 10-2 after eight innings when bad light meant the final regulation inning could not be played, so whilst we can all cross our fingers for a comeback to end all comebacks, more realistically we should pencil in a loss to GB’s record (and a W for the Dutch).

If we do that, then Pool A will look like this ahead of the three scheduled games to be played in full:

PTeamWL
1Israel40
2Netherlands31
3Czech Republic22
4Germany22
5Great Britain13
6Sweden04

Wednesday’s Pool A fixtures, all being played in Bonn, are as follows:

  • Sweden v Great Britain (12:30 BST).
  • Israel v Netherlands (14:00)
  • Germany v Czech Republic (18:00).

What do we need to happen?

Great Britain’s game is the first one up and, pending a shocking comeback against the Netherlands later on, quite simply is a game they must win to have a chance of finishing the top four.

From there, attention will turn to the game at 18:00 BST between Germany and the Czech Republic. That will determine which of those two teams finishes 3-2 and which finishes 2-3, and that will be hugely important for Great Britain.

CEB tournament rules dictate that the first tie-breaker when two teams finish on the same win-loss record is the head-to-head result between the two teams.

If Germany beat the Czech Republic then Great Britain will finish fourth, qualifying for the quarter-finals, due to our 4-3 win over them on Monday.

If the Czech Republic beat Germany then we will be placed in fifth, with Germany’s 1-0 win on Sunday putting them ahead of us.

A nervous day ahead!

Those small margins will loom large on Wednesday. If Great Britain lose to Sweden not only will that put us into the ‘Classification’ section, rather than the quarter-finals, it would also mean a sixth-placed pool finish (Sweden winning the tie-breaker with us both on 1-4 records). That would be a real shame and not at all representative of how well the team has played.

But let’s not allow such negative thoughts into our heads. Instead, let’s focus on cheering Great Britain to victory over the Swedes and then spending the rest of the afternoon learning the German national anthem!

After the games are complete

I’ve been live-streaming ahead of Great Britain’s games on Periscope/Twitter over the last few days and if you haven’t seen them then you can check them out on the new British Baseball Beat YouTube channel. As noted there, the YouTube channel is going to be developed over the off-season but it seemed a good idea to collate these videos in one place so we’ll call it a soft launch!

Here’s the video recorded prior to Tuesday’s games, as an example:

https://youtu.be/VsBnllet_8A

I’m planning to do a live-stream on Periscope/Twitter after the Germany-Czech Republic game (so, probably about 21:00 BST) to reflect on the day’s events, so keep an eye out for that on my Twitter account: @mattbaseballgb.

Euros Day One: GB game to be completed

The first day of the 2019 European Baseball Championships is almost in the books.

The ‘almost’ is there because Great Britain’s game against the Netherlands was suspended after eight innings due to bad late stopping play. The Netherlands lead 10-2, so it will be an almighty ninth-inning effort by Liam Carroll’s Lions to avoid a defeat, but technically we can say the game is still alive!

There’s no official word yet as to when the final inning will be played, although today (Sunday) and Wednesday are the only two days in the First Round on which the two teams are playing in the same place, so we should know fairly soon.

I rounded up all the action from Day One, and then looked ahead to Day Two, on a Sunday morning Periscope live stream. I’ve uploaded it to our new British Baseball Beat YouTube channel which is very much a work in progress, but will be developed over the course of the off-season.

https://youtu.be/LHAAGFzNGJM

Great Britain’s game on Sunday is scheduled to start at 18.00 BST. We take on the hosts Germany in Bonn, with live coverage available at baseballsoftball.tv.

European Baseball Championship 2019 begins today

The day is finally here. The 2019 European Baseball Championship begins in Germany with not only the European crown on the line, but a path towards qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

The top 12 teams in Europe will battle it out over the next nine days, playing 47 games in total across two venues: Bonn and Solingen.

Whilst every team will be aiming to emerge victorious in Game 47, they will also be mindful that the top five teams earn the right to compete in the Europe-Africa Olympic qualifier in Italy, starting on 18 September, alongside South Africa.

The two pools

The twelve teams are split into two pools for the first round of the tournament. Great Britain are in Pool A.

Pool A

Netherlands (8th)
Czech Republic (18th)
Israel (19th)
Germany (22nd)
Sweden (34th)
Great Britain (38th)

Pool B

Italy (16th)
France (25th)
Spain (26th)
Austria (27th)
Belgium (30th)
Croatia (32nd).

The numbers in parenthesis are the current WBSC World Rankings. As with FIFA’s football world rankings, the exact placements can be questioned but they do tell a tale of the challenge ahead for Liam Carroll’s team.

Great Britain are ranked as the lowest team of the 12 and GB’s pool contains four of the top five ranked European teams, albeit that the differences in the Czech Republic (18th) to Belgium (30th) group of teams are not wide.

Don’t be so quick to count GB out, though.

The favourites

The same five teams have finished in the top five in the past three Euros: Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic.

It will be difficult for any team to break into that group, but that’s not going to stop the rest from trying and Great Britain will be right there among them.

GB’s roster

GB’s Schedule

Here’s GB’s full first round schedule, with start times in BST.

Saturday 7th – Netherlands (15.00 BST)

Sunday 8th – Germany (18.00)

Monday 9th – Czech Republic (11.30)

Tuesday 10th – Israel (11.30)

Wednesday 11th – Sweden (12.00)

Game One: Netherlands

Great Britain’s tournament starts today against the Netherlands.

The Honkballers have won the tournament a record 22 times, including the last two in 2014 and 2016. They go into this year’s competition favourites not only to win the Euros, but also to prevail in the Olympic qualifier.

That means GB have the toughest test to start.

It also means GB have the perfect opportunity to really set down a marker for the days ahead, hopefully in the form of a shock win but, if not, at least by putting in a strong performance that they can take a lot of confidence from.

All of the games in the tournament are going to be streamed live on www.baseballsoftball.tv. Be sure to follow along from 15.00 BST as our Lions get their 2019 Euros started.

U23 European Championships This Week

In a busy year of international baseball, the latest competition sees Great Britain heading to Prague for the Under 23 European Championships.

Drew Spencer of the London Mets has taken on the role of GB’s U23 Head Coach and he will lead a team to the Czech Republic looking to build on the positive performances shown by the U12s and U18s so far this summer.

The U23 event takes place from Wednesday to Sunday and consists of eight teams spread across two first round pools.

Great Britain are in Pool A alongside France, Germany and the Netherlands, with Pool B containing Belgium, Croatia, Ukraine and the hosts, Czech Republic.

GB Schedule

Great Britain’s First Round schedule is as follows:

  • Wed 7th – Netherlands (15:00 local, 14:00 in UK),
  • Thurs 8th – Germany (15:00 local, 14:00 in UK),
  • Fri 9th – France (13:30 local, 12:30 in UK).

Once the First Round games are complete, the top two teams from each Pool will play semi-finals on Saturday (Pool A 1st vs Pool B 2nd etc), with the winners heading to the Final on Sunday and the losers playing a Third-Place game.

The teams that finish third and fourth in the First Round will play out their own Second Round on Saturday and Sunday, so all eight teams are ensured of five games across the five days.

Full Schedule details are available on the CEB Tournament webpage.

How To Follow The Action

The hosts Eagles Praha stream their league games live from their main field on YouTube, so that’s likely to be used during the U23 tournament. Great Britain’s games on Wednesday and Thursday will be played on that field, with the Friday game being on the Tempo Prague Field which doesn’t appear to have a live webstream presence.

As always with CEB events, there will be a live game tracker available from the main tournament page, whilst no doubt the Great Britain Baseball Twitter feed will be providing updates as well.

Tie-breaker brings an end to Great Britain U18’s Euro Qualifier

Great Britain U18’s bowed out of the European Championship U18 Qualifier in Sundbyberg, Sweden, on Friday.

After Belgium mounted a 5-run final inning comeback to beat Israel, Great Britain entered their game on Friday evening against Sweden knowing that a win would send them through to Saturday’s final, but a defeat would leave their fate in the hands of the CEB’s dreaded Teams Quality Balance equation.

Unfortunately a 6-2 defeat, including a lengthy delay in the bottom of the sixth inning due to a problem with the floodlights, meant the latter did come into play and brought an end to their tournament.

Will Lintern’s team mounted a typically spirited final-inning fightback, plating one run and then having the bases loaded when Sweden were able to get a ground-out to end the threat.

Despite getting the victory, it turned out to be a frustrating night for the home team. Had Israel held onto their lead in the earlier game then Sweden’s 2-0 record against GB and Belgium would have sent them through to the final. Instead, the TQB tie-breaker was needed to separate Sweden, Britain and Israel’s 2-2 records and the Swede’s fell one run short of bettering Israel’s TQB score.

Positives to take

Every tournament gives players the opportunity to develop and there were plenty of signs of that on display for Great Britain.

Jack Seppings went 6-for-14, led the team in runs scored (7) and stolen bases (4 from 4 attempts, including 3 in the game against Switzerland) whilst also pitching 6.1 innings across three appearances.

Michael Flaherty went 6-for-13 with 3 doubles and James Warren proved to be an RBI machine, leading the team with 8 runs batted in.

William Baranello will surely learn a lot from his two starts in the event, showing a real ability to miss bats with 12 strike-outs over 8 innings pitched. If he can pair that with developing his control (11 walks and 3 wild pitches) then he could prove to be an exciting prospect.

Aside from what shows up in the stats, every inning pitched, every inning in the field and every plate appearance would have been valuable learning experience for the young Lions. The future looks bright even though the team didn’t quite go as far as they might have hoped this time around.

Full tournament details can be found on the CEB website.

Up next …

Great Britain’s U23 team are in tournament action next, heading to Prague in the Czech Republic for the U23 Euros. The competition begins on 7 August.

Great Britain U18s look to secure qualification for the 2020 U18 European Championships

UPDATE: I’ve updated this post to correct it (rather than leave it up and post a new one that might get overlooked). The CEB competition rules state two teams go through but I overlooked that there are two qualifying pools! So, only the first placed-team will advance.

Great Britain U18’s staged a sensational comeback against Israel in Sundyberg, Sweden, on Thursday to give themselves a great chance of qualifying for the U18 European Championships next year.

Will Lintern’s team conceded 4 runs in the bottom of the first inning to be in an early hole against an Israel team that had won its first two games of the tournament. However this just set the stage for the Young Lions to roar back later on. They trailed 6-4 heading into the top of the sixth inning (the games here only lasting 7 innings rather than the usual 9) before turning the game on its head.

Great Britain scored 2 two-out runs in the sixth inning to draw level and then took the lead in the top of the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly by catcher Aidan Pearce that brought home Nathan Simmons. Jack Seppings had minimal margin for error in the bottom of the seventh inning but a 1-run lead was all he needed as he pitched around a hit-by-pitch to close the game out.

Where does that leave us?

Friday is the last day of the preliminary round before the qualifier final on Saturday.

Here are the standings heading into the final day.

PosTeamWL
1Belgium21
2Great Britain21
3Israel21
4Sweden12
5Switzerland13

Belgium and Israel will face each other at 13.00 UK time before Great Britain take to the field against Sweden at 17.30 UK time.

If Great Britain win their game they will be guaranteed a spot in the Qualifier final on Saturday. If Sweden win it then they alongside GB and the loser of the Belgium-Israel game will all be tied on 2-2 (the winner of that game will move to a 3-1 record and make the final). How that plays out depends on which of Belgium or Israel are left in the tie-breaker conundrum.

If Israel defeat Belgium

In this scenario the Great Britain and Sweden game will essentially become a semi-final. If GB win they go through with Israel, both on 3-1 records. If Sweden win then they would come out on top on the first tie-breaker rule, results between the teams tied, as they would hold a win against both of the teams they are tied with (whereas Belgium and Great Britain would both be 1-1).

If Belgium defeat Israel

It becomes more complicated in this scenario as Great Britain, Israel and Sweden would all be 1-1 in results against each other. That means it would go on to the second tie-breaker, CEB’s dreaded Teams Quality Balance (TQB) equation.

Teams Quality Balance (TQB) is the sum of runs scored divided by the number of innings played on offense minus the number of runs allowed divided by the number of innings played on defense. (RS/IPO)-(RA/IPD)=TQB.


The TQB is calculated with four decimal places. The fifth decimal place is used to round up or down

Currently, if my sums are correct (warning: that is not a given!), Israel have a decent lead (0.43095) ahead of GB (0.05) and then Sweden (-0.23333); however those figures could change substantially depending on the results of the final games. And it won’t just be a simple calculation either: a 1-run loss for GB would affect things differently depending on it being 0-1 or 5-6 etc.

So, what result do we want from the Belgium-Israel game?

From an odds point of view I guess Belgium winning is preferable because that would at least give Great Britain a second chance even if they lost against Sweden; however the clear-cut, winner-goes-through scenario that would follow an Israel victory in the opening game would be less of a brain-scrambler.

Of course, the best result would be for Great Britain to beat Sweden and make the earlier Belgium-Israel result irrelevant (other than in deciding who GB will face in the final). That would make everyone happy.

Other than Sweden.

But then they gave us Abba which ultimately led to the film Mamma Mia (and Mamma Mia 2), so they’d just have to accept that karma was on our side.

How to follow the games

You can follow along either by using the classic CEB ‘Gameday’ scoring system on their website or watch via the Sundbyberg Heat YouTube channel.

British Baseball Beat: Back to it

“Hey, Matt, why haven’t you been writing about the British leagues much this year?”.

I was asked variations of this question quite a few times over the MLB London Series weekend and I have to say I was flattered that people had noticed!

The truth is I’ve been busy with other projects and have always worked on the basis of wanting to write things I had put time into rather than just quickly putting stuff up on the website for the sake of regular content.

One of the ongoing projects is a redesign for this site, as I look to focus it much more on covering the British leagues and British baseball history and related video content, and I was going to wait until that was done before getting going again. However, striking whilst the (West Ham?) iron is hot, let’s get back into the swing of things by casting a glance around the British scene.

National teams making us proud

Firstly, Great Britain U-12s recently qualified for the 2020 European Championships by finishing second in their qualifying tournament in Trebic, Czech Republic.

The Young Lions fought back from 4-1 down against Austria to earn a crucial win 5-4 with Erik Gustafson starring, driving in two runs and then pitching 2.2 score-less relief innings. The final game against Slovakia didn’t go GB’s way, but even in this contest they showed great heart by making it close (13-9 final score) despite their opponents scoring eight runs in the second inning. All in all, a great achievement for Eric Anderson and his team.

Next up are Will Lintern’s U18 squad. They started their Euro qualifier in Sundbyberg, Sweden today with a 10-8 victory over Switzerland. Jack Seppings was doing it all for the team, going 3-for-4 at the plate, driving in 4 runs, stealing 3 bases and pitching two innings in relief.

The team have an off-day on Tuesday before getting back to it on Wednesday with a game against Belgium. First pitch will be at 13.00 BST. Coverage is available on the good-old CEB website ‘Gameday live’ system and streamed live on the Sundbyberg Heat YouTube channel.

National Baseball League

In the top-tier, the London Mets were clearly inspired by the recent visit of some New York Yankee legends to Finsbury Park. They improved their season win-loss record to 14-0 with two victories over the London Capitals (9-9) by scores of 8-1 and 5-1. The Mets’ pitching staff is completely handcuffing the rest of the NBL, with the team having allowed only 25 runs across their 14 games played.

Herts Falcons were looking for two wins to separate themselves from the Essex Arrows in the standings.

They got them, only not quite in the way they would have wanted. The Falcons were awarded two forfeit wins, improving their record to 6-10.

Double-A

Bournemouth Bears (11-0) continued their unbeaten start to the season by picking up wins 10 and 11 against the Herts Hawks (7-5), whilst Bristol Badgers (8-5) kept their good form up with two wins against Richmond Dragons (3-9).

In Pool B, London Marauders (11-2) swept a double-header against Cambridge Monarchs (5-7). In the opener, Billy Atkinson Warne gave up just 3 hits across seven innings of one-run ball, striking out 11 Monarchs in the process as the Marauders prevailed 9-1. The second game then quickly got out of hand for Cambridge as London put nine runs on the board in the first inning, with the game eventually being called 12-0 after four innings.

In Norwich, the Iceni (5-6) split a double-header with London Sidewinders (8-5).

Single-A

In the Central, Long Eaton Storm and Birmingham Outlaws are the form teams.

Long Eaton swept a double-header over Cambridge Lancers on Sunday to make it a perfect 10 wins in a row, improving their season record to 13-1. As for the Outlaws, since they lost two games against Long Eaton on 19 May they have won eight straight, the most recent successes being two wins against Northants Centurians.

Meanwhile in Single-A Pool B the Kent Buccaneers collected two wins at the expense of Tonbridge.

Baseball Scotland

North of the border, there were inter-city derbies to enjoy (or endure, depending on which end you were on). Glasgow Galaxy got the better of Glasgow Comets 16-5, whilst Edinburgh Cannons defeated the Edinburgh Diamond Devils 5-1.

This coming weekend is going to be a big one in Scotland as the Bobby Thomson Invitational event will be staged in Edinburgh. Talent from the three main independent leagues – Scotland, British Baseball League and South West Baseball League – will be joined by the AAU USA International Collegiate Baseball Team. If you’re in the area, make sure to head along.

Great Britain Baseball Funding Boost

$300m is an eye-catching figure, there’s no doubt about that.

Manny Machado’s impending payday with the San Diego Padres has received UK online media coverage today and you can understand why.

However, from a British perspective news of a much smaller sum will have a much larger impact.

It was announced at the end of last week that Great Britain Baseball will receive £30,500 from the UK Sport Aspiration Fund as part of the team’s preparations for the 2019 European Championships and associated Olympic qualification attempt. This came after the incredibly disappointing news from early December in which it was announced that baseball would receive no such funding, although GB Softball was awarded £62,500.

The hard work put in since that point, not least by BaseballSoftballUK, to gain some baseline funding for baseball should be applauded.

It’s easy to look at £30,500 and think it’s not a great deal of money in the general scheme of things, and it’s certainly true that this is far from a transformative sum. But for a programme that has become accustomed to doing all it can to build Great Britain baseball, from the juniors up to the seniors, with no national funding, any financial help is a bonus and can be used to good effect.

No one is underestimating the challenge Great Britain will face in finishing in the top five at the Euros and thereby making it through to the Africa/Europe qualifier.

The Netherlands will be prohibitive favourites to win the event, with Italy, Spain and the hosts Germany at good odds to join them in the top four, before a keen battle for the fifth spot, likely led by Belgium.

Liam Carroll’s team finished ninth overall at the most recent event (2016) and GB have only finished in the top five twice in the history of the tournament (silver medal finishes in 1967 and 2007), so it will be a big ask to break into that group. However, no one should be in any doubt as to the commitment and fight that the team and coaching staff will show to give their best and to make it happen.

The provisional schedule has handed GB the toughest start possible in opening up with games against the Netherlands and Germany, yet you kind of think that may be how the team will like it. We saw the same situation back in 2007 when Great Britain, led by Stephan Rapaglia, spoiled Spain’s Opening Day party and then rode a wave of confidence all the way to a final against the Dutch.

Great Britain heads into 2019 on the back of an encouraging bronze medal performance by the U23s in the European Championship Qualifier in Slovakia.

The U23s will be part of the European Championship U23 in Prague, Czech Republic in early August, with the U18s heading to the European Championship Qualifier Juniors U18 held in Sundbyberg, Sweden in July, a week after the U12s will have been in European action in Trebic, Czech Republic.

All worth noting for the next time someone hears about the MLB London Series and tries to tell you no one plays baseball here.

It’s also worth noting more generally in regard to the promotional impact that the Yankees and Red Sox coming to London will have. Understandably, MLB is coming to these shores to promote MLB, but there’s a great opportunity for us to use it as a way to promote British baseball too and in particular the Great Britain programme.

What better way for our teams to head into European competition starting in July than on the back of a late June MLB London Series that makes many more people aware (even among MLB fans based here) of our national team set-up.

And maybe even with a few fundraising events and initiatives to add to the £30,500 already in the pot.