“It’s Time to Play Ball, British Style”: A hot dog, a Pimm’s cup and two national anthems: The cultural dissonance of watching America’s pastime in London. (IMOGEN WEST-KNIGHTS, JULY 9, 2024, The Dial)
I have seen one baseball game before, two years ago at Yankee stadium in New York. The sport itself felt incidental to me: It seemed that you could treat the game as a location in which to drink a beer more than anything else. The primary impression I took away was one of overwhelming Americanness. What could a baseball game in London possibly feel like, so far from its native home? What is the appeal of this most American pastime to Brits? I went to the Phillies Mets game to find out.