LONDON — Rachel Marsh can pinpoint exactly when her Chicago Cubs fandom began. It was one of those groundhog days in lockdown in July 2020 when her friend Sarah, who was video calling from Chicago, told her to put the Cubs-Brewers game on. Intrigued, she watched, and was quickly hooked.
Marsh, a 25-year-old teacher who lives in Kent, England, didn’t know the rules, but that was okay: a ton of Google searches and message boards could fix that. She returned to her TV for the rest of the series. Then another series. Within weeks, she was reading about years of the Cubs’ failed expectations — and the one year, 2016, when they finally won. She identified with the pain. Within months, Marsh was all in, arguing with newfound friends about on-base percentages (OBP) and earned run averages (ERA), making baseball memes on Twitter and fawning over her favourite player: No. 44, Anthony Rizzo.
“I’m that kind of sports fan. I’m nerdy with it,” Marsh tells ESPN. “Give me those stats. Give me those weird numbers. I love that.”
Every Europe-based baseball fan has a different start to their fandom, when their wee small hours of the morning — the time in the U.K. when games are typically live — start to involve highlights and scrolling for player trade news. What’s interesting about Marsh’s introduction to baseball is its timing.
MLB landed in London in 2019 with a ludicrously high-scoring series (the New York Yankees won both games over the Boston Red Sox in a series that saw a staggering 50 runs scored) that captivated fans and threw momentum behind the league’s effort to grow its European fan base. However, that hype was soon stopped in its tracks. The COVID-19 pandemic robbed the promise of another London series the following summer, and then the two summers after that. The reduced 60-game schedule in 2020 was a hindrance, too. Throw in the MLB lockout in 2022, and the brakes were pumped even further.
Now, MLB is back with regular-season games in London, and with another rivalry: The Chicago Cubs face the St. Louis Cardinals at the London Stadium in a two-game series this weekend. This series is of high importance to the MLB’s European ambitions, symbolised further by the fact that commissioner Rob Manfred will be also in town.
But, after four years away, can the league reignite the initial momentum it had in 2019?
John McGee, one of the founders of the U.K.’s biggest baseball podcast, “Bat Flips and Nerds,” remembers the buzz among fans. The podcast was reaching recording numbers, and his social media was blowing up with questions from Brits who wanted to know more about what they’d just seen.
“The games were just extraordinary. Friends of mine who’ve never been to a baseball game were like: ‘Is it usually like this?'” McGee says, laughing. “No, it’s so different from this.”
Yet just as momentum was building, the COVID-19 pandemic put the whole world, not just baseball, on hold. The MLB season was paused, returning in July — by which point even the thought of hosting games internationally seemed a stretch when hosting them domestically was challenging enough. While NFL and NBA returned to Europe at the earliest opportunity after international travel became more readily achievable, MLB has taken an extra beat or two to make its comeback across the pond.
“We [fans] kind of got a little bit forgotten about,” McGee says.
MLB’s Europe office — led by Ben Ladkin, who took up the role shortly after the 2019 London series — tried its best to keep fans engaged. They sent care packages to a wide number of British-based fan groups and took a new approach.
“We didn’t have the games in 2020 and actually, although being a massive shame and it was obviously not good in any way, it did give us the opportunity to step back slightly and say: ‘OK, we’ve got this first series, how do we build that for the next time we get teams across?'” Ladkin says.
Ladkin’s biggest focus was how to get Europeans to pay greater attention to baseball on a daily basis, which is no mean feat in a sport that often asks itself the same question in America. He ramped up changing the league’s content offering in Europe, including bringing in familiar faces to introduce fans to the game — particularly British faces. The league partnered with England cricketer Harry Brook, who trained briefly with the Cardinals to learn how to hit in the big leagues — spoiler: it’s a lot different from cricket — while England and Australia cricketers Jimmy Anderson and Nathan Lyon will put aside their Ashes rivalry to throw out the first pitch this weekend.
MLB is not alone in trying to set out a stool in London. America’s sports leagues have made a continued play to grow their fan bases in Europe in the past decade, with England’s capital acting as a repeated landing spot. The NFL has hosted regular-season games with increased success since 2007. The NBA held regular-season games in London between 2011 and 2019 before turning its attention to Paris.
Now, MLB is returning, with an agreement to host further series in 2024 — between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets. The Yankees are angling to play in Paris in 2025. But London games will continue until 2026, with an eye to grow the games into a three- or four-game series in future. The mission is to make London home.
“I hope this weekend reignites the place of Major League Baseball in the public consciousness because you really felt that for a couple of months in 2019,” McGee says.
One of those fans in the new wave since 2019 will be Marsh. The upcoming Cubs games will not be her first. Last summer, she made a pilgrimage to Wrigley Field and saw six games in five days (she also makes keen mention that she left with an above .500 record). Anthony Rizzo remains her favorite player, even after a 2021 trade sending him to the New York Yankees.
These past weeks, it is Marsh who has been subject to many questions from other new fans asking about the sport: the rules, the best place to sit in the stadium, and who will be the best players to watch.
Sometimes, they ask her what team they should support. No prizes for guessing her answer.
“The Cubs!” she says. “But also, just baseball in general. It’s about spreading it in the U.K., and I love that even more.”
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Former University of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, who helped lead the team to back-to-back national championships, announced Thursday that he is running for lieutenant governor of Alabama.
McCarron made the announcement in a video posted to YouTube on Thursday. McCarron, a first-time candidate, described himself as a political outsider. He cited conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September, as his inspiration to “get off the sidelines.” McCarron, who is running as a Republican, also stressed his 2016 endorsement of President Donald Trump.
“Today, Alabama’s conservative and cultural values are under attack from every direction. That’s why Charlie Kirk’s assassination affected so many of us so deeply,” McCarron said in the video.
McCarron is seeking to be the latest figure to channel sports fame into a political win. Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020 and is running for governor of Alabama. Former Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl had considered a run for Senate but decided against it.
“The Montgomery insiders and career politicians have had their chance. It’s time for political newcomers and outsider candidates like me to lead the battle,” McCarron said.
McCarron joins a crowded GOP field that includes Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate, pastor Dean Odle and businessperson Nicole Jones Wadsworth.
McCarron was the Crimson Tide’s starting quarterback and led the team to national championship wins in the 2012 and 2013 seasons. He was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and went on to play for the Cincinnati Bengals and other NFL teams.
Texas Tech redshirt freshman Will Hammond will start at quarterback against Oklahoma State on Saturday, a source told ESPN, marking his second straight start for the No. 14 Red Raiders.
Starting quarterback Behren Morton is recovering from a leg injury and will be available for the game, the source added, as he continues to improve. The Red Raiders have a bye after this week’s matchup with the Cowboys that will afford Morton more time to get healthy, with growing optimism he’ll return after the bye.
Hammond started last week’s 26-22 loss to Arizona State, finishing 22-for-37 for 167 yards and two touchdowns, along with 47 yards rushing and a rushing score for the Red Raiders.
Texas Tech’s offense struggled for three quarters against ASU, but Hammond led two late scoring drives that he capped with a 1-yard touchdown run and a 12-yard touchdown pass.
He also ran in a two-point conversion to give Texas Tech a late lead, only to have the comeback foiled by a late ASU touchdown drive led by quarterback Sam Leavitt in the final minute of play.
Morton has put together a dominant season for the Red Raiders. Prior to the injury, he completed 68.4 percent of his passes, throwing for 1,501 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Morton’s improved health will be crucial for Texas Tech’s finishing stretch. They play at Kansas State on Nov. 1 and host No. 11 BYU on Nov. 8.
Oklahoma State has lost six consecutive games, including a 49-17 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday night.
Oklahoma is installing padding around Owen Field after receiver Keontez Lewis ran headfirst into a brick wall three weeks ago.
A school spokesman confirmed padding will be added to both end-zone walls and the sideline walls outside the team bench areas in time for Saturday’s game between No. 13 Oklahoma and No. 8 Ole Miss. The OU Daily, the school’s student newspaper, was first to report the change.
Lewis was injured in the first quarter of Oklahoma’s 44-0 win over Kent State on Oct. 4. A pass by Michael Hawkins Jr. was a bit overthrown, and Lewis’ momentum took him into an unpadded section of the wall behind the end zone. He was carted off, prompting concerns from fans.
Most of the wall was not padded, and it is close to the field boundaries. Oklahoma coach Brent Venables had said the plans for the change were in the works within days of the injury.
Lewis played the next week against Texas, but missed Saturday’s 26-7 victory over South Carolina. He is listed on the SEC injury report as doubtful for this Saturday’s game.