What’s the future of British Baseball?
When people ask about the strength of the sport here in the UK, I feel obliged to say that it remains a niche sport but it’s sustainable at the moment. And to some extent that’s true; no more people leave the sport than take it up, and with coverage of MLB on channels such as ESPN, there’s a lot of opportunity for people to see and understand the game.
The next step of course is to receive wider interest of the domestic game, spurred on by GB’s success at the European Baseball Championship Qualifiers and their appearance at the Finals next year. Although many of the British players don’t play in the UK, getting stories in national media or through other channels is the next step.
Meanwhile, ensuring that clubs are run sustainably and can maintain interest and commitment from current players whilst developing kids teams and enhancing that angle. It takes a lot of time, especially when most people who do the admin for clubs also tend to be the players, and in the past I’ve known the Head Coach, Captain, Clean-up hitter, Catcher, Chairman and Treasurer to be the same person.
There’s a poor legacy in British baseball of people who have given up playing and walking away from the sport altogether. People move to different areas due to work or family commitments, which is fair enough, but the structures in place to retain this involvement are not as strong as other sports, amateur or professional.
And part of that can be linked to three factors:
1) There are few diamonds in the UK that have hosted baseball for more than 15 years, and few clubs who have been around that long as well. Without a physical location it is hard to get any emotional connection and essentially baseball clubs have existed in the past by trusting players to return for spring training after a winter of not being in touch.
2) The social scene is non-existent in most instances. Because of the vast distances teams have to travel to play, few are able to hang around to enjoy a few drinks with the opposition, who themselves are often taking up to an hour to pack away and rake the field after play.
3) Intensity levels vary between teams and even within clubs. When the cost of the sport is always rising due to equipment, petrol and subs/match fees, few people enjoy being yelled at for being tagged out rather than trying to crush the catcher at the plate. Added to their not being a great social scene, there’s little opportunity for matters to be discussed off the diamond.
Things are generally improving. The league structure now is fairly appropriate for teams’ abilities, and with a few moves here and there for next season, we should hopefully see a .500 season as a great effort rather than a .750 summer as an inevitability.
That baseball has to rival cricket makes it difficult as cricket has had a massive resurgence in the UK following the English Ashes victory in 2005. And they’ve cashed in big time with projects such as Chance to Shine. Baseball needs to find a way to capitalise on any gains it makes here in the UK, and perhaps it needs that physical location. Baseball needs its Wembley, its Lords, its Twickenham. British Baseball needs a home.
Follow Michael Jones on twitter @DazzMcGuinness