The American professional baseball Major League (MLB), which dreams of globalizing baseball, held a regular league game in London, the capital of England, the ‘closed home of soccer’ in four years.
The traditional rivals, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals, played the first game of the ‘London Series’ at London Stadium on the 24th (local time).
The Cubs won 4 in a row by beating St. Louis 9-1 with 14 hits.
Mike Tuckman, who played for the Hanwha Eagles in the KBO League last year, took the Cubs first hitter as center fielder and helped with 1 hit, 1 RBI and 1 run in 5 at-bats.
St. Louis’ starting pitcher Adam Wainwright gave up 11 hits in 3 innings and gave up 7 runs in a complete loss.
Tommy Hyun-soo Edman, who participated as a member of the Korean national team in the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), started as the St. Louis first batter and center fielder and posted 4 at-bats, 1 hit and 1 run.
Both teams will return to the United States after playing the second game at the same place on the 25th.
MLB puts a lot of time and money into just two games.
London Stadium, which was held on this day, is a complex sports facility used as the home stadium of West Ham United in the English professional football Premier League. It was used as the main stadium for the 2012 London Olympics.
MLB renovated a large stadium to host the London Series먹튀검증.
MLB went through the process of leveling the surface by laying the grass on top of 4,000 tons of aggregate after removing the grass from the soccer field.
In addition, special spectator seats were created and the rectangular stadium was converted into a baseball field.
And that’s not all. The dugout and clubhouse used by the players were newly installed as a prefabricated structure.
The match that day drew a lot of attention. A total of 54,662 cloud spectators flocked to the stadium to support both teams.
The London series started in 2019. At the time, the ‘traditional rivals’ New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox played at London Stadium.
From 2020 to last year, it was temporarily suspended in the aftermath of the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), but resumed this year.
MLB plans to hold the London Series in 2024 and 2026 as well. In 2025, we plan to play in Paris, France.
There is a possibility that the world tour will be held in Korea. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred recently introduced, “We plan to hold a world tour in Korea, Japan and Taiwan.”