The crack of leather-bound cork on wood. The soft thud of ball in glove. The smells of summer: of hot dogs and beer and freshly cut grass. Baseball season is truly here!

Well, it’s been here for a while now, and we’re not even half way through yet. At the time of writing my team, the Milwaukee Brewers, have just completed a closely fought four game sweep of the Florida Marlins, immediately followed by a fairly disappointing series at home to the New York Mets.

The long painstaking draft was completed earlier this week and the All Star Game, marking the spiritual if not physical half-way point in the baseball season, is still a way away.

If I were to start at the start, which by all accounts would be the logical thing to do, I should let you know just how a young Briton from the rural county of Dorset came to be such a fan of this most American of pastimes. Continue reading →