London didn’t exactly throw Major League Baseball a welcome parade before the Red Sox and Yankees threw out the first pitch of their two-game MLB in London series over the weekend.
Sure, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry paid the two teams surprise visits in the locker rooms before the games began, but otherwise the city seemed relatively unenthusiastic ahead of the biggest rivalry in professional baseball being played across the pond for the first time.
But after the completion of the games, it seems the sport’s launch in London was a hit — literally. The Yankees swept the Sox 2-0 with 17-13 and 12-8 wins, but more attention-grabbing (and true to 2019 baseball) was the offensive numbers, not just which team won. The teams scored a combined 50 runs on a total of 65 hits, including 10 home runs.
“All of the feedback was that it was fantastic,” MLB senior vice president Jim Small told USA Today. “So, from a U.S. standpoint, the pitching wasn’t very good, the game was too long, but it was such a great fresh start for baseball here.”
