Take Me Out to the Ball Game... in London?

Baseball is more often than not thought of as the national pastime of Americans. Buy us some peanuts and Cracker Jack and stick us in a stadium – we’ll be happy as clams.

One of the greatest baseball rivalries ever is between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. For the first time ever, these two teams took their rivalry overseas, to London! The teams faced off in the Olympic Park Stadium for two games over the weekend of June 29th with the hopes of gaining some brand-new European fans.

I was lucky enough to snag some tickets to this inaugural event which was extra exciting for Conner and I because both of our home teams were playing.

The event kicked off with a ceremonial first pitch from the royal couple, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. We unfortunately had tickets for the second game, so we missed out on this celebrity appearance. Even more unfortunately, the Yankees won 17-13 after an almost five-hour long game.

On Sunday, it was finally our turn! We arrived at the stadium early so we could explore the Olympic Park grounds.

Then, we entered the stadium as soon as the doors opened so we could check-out all of the food options and avoid lines for the merch. There were some crazy options available such as the “Boomstick Hot Dog” which was 2 feet long and cost £24! They also shipped in some classic American favorites such Cracker Jacks, and made sure the beer taps were filled with Sam Adams from Boston and Brooklyn Lager from New York. They even had a local brewery, Mondo Brewing, create a special edition Pale Ale just for the game and it was delicious!

The game started off great with the Red Sox leading the Yankees 4-2 until the 7th inning. Everything went downhill here for Boston when the Yankees score 9 (yes NINE) runs taking their new lead of 11 to 4. Even though the Red Sox rallied slightly at the end of the 8th inning, they still ended up with the loss and the Yankees won 12-8.

Although it was painful to watch my hometown lose so dramatically, it was still fun to attend a game overseas and see the crowd enjoy it just as much as we would back home. They even played the theme songs for the teams, YMCA (for the Yankee fans) and Sweet Caroline (for the Red Sox fans) during inning switches and ended off the night with New York, New York by Frank Sinatra to honor the Yankees win.

If you’re sad you missed out this year, don’t worry! Next year, the MLB will be hosting a London based game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs!