It’s an overcast but warm Sunday in London town, and we’ve come all the way from Leicestershire to the Olympic Park to attend an extremely rare and exciting event. Once a year, London Stadium (which is now the given home of West Ham) is transformed from a classic football pitch into an enormous baseball stadium. The build itself is truly something to behold, you can watch an incredible time-lapse of it on MLB Europe’s social media, but turning a rectangular pitch into the iconic diamond is no mean feat.
The first MLB London Series was held in 2019 with the original grudge-match of Yankees vs. Red Sox, and was then disrupted by Covid for the next three years. Returning last year with a St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs match it has already cemented itself as a true London summer essential, with fans rushing in from all over the UK as well as from overseas.
Driving to London is nowhere near as chaotic as people make it out to be, especially if you’re heading to one of the Westfield malls (conveniently located outside of the congestion charge zone). We park at Stratford Westfield for a purse-friendly £13 flat day rate, which is incidentally cheaper than parking in our own mall all day in Leicester, and it’s a very short walk from there right into the Stadium grounds. With fuel and parking all in, we’ve probably saved ourselves around £300 for three of us on public transport, as well as a whole lot less stress.
Heading into the arena we are surrounded by baseball jerseys of all kinds, not just the two teams that are playing today. In case you were wondering how a sporting event fits into our ‘Summer Festival Guide’ parameters here, this is truly like walking into a metal fest and seeing a sea of band tshirts – and I’m about to give you all the reasons this stacks up as a must-do Summer Festival.
Outside of the security entrances we spot a decent sized merchandise stall with a hefty queue around it, and there are flags, banners and backdrops for taking photographs everywhere. There are also plenty of stewards with selfie-frames and foam fingers who are there to help you get your perfect game day group shots. It’s a really nice touch, and adds to the atmosphere. To make things go smoothly, they open the gates to the arena area 3 hours before the event and have security entrances on at least two sides. It’s a quick bag check and we’re in!
Around the front of the stadium there are yet more photo opportunities, live entertainment in the form of percussion bands, stilt walkers and more. There are set ‘Fan Zones’ for each team which house have-a-go pitching cages, mini merch stalls and food stands curated from the hometowns of each team. at the Mets Zone you can grab a mouthwatering New York Pastrami sandwich, pizza and fried chicken. Over at the Phillies Zone you can feast on a classic Cheesesteak, Phanatic Fried Chicken (isn’t he meant to be a bird? That’s a bit gauche if you ask me) or some punny ‘Batter Up’ fish and chips.
Now situated at the back of the stadium, the huge MLB superstore has an hour and a half queue to traverse (so said the helpful steward at the entrance) which unfortunately would put us past opening ceremony time so we decided to hit it up later on. This turned out to perhaps be a mistake, as by the time we made it back there – the entire store was bereft of Phillies merchandise. I know the games are over two days but it does seem that if you want your pick – you’re better off going early or even the day before to one of the other outlets. The huge tailgate party at Trafalgar square also has merchandise on offer and it’s free to get in during the weekend, a good strategy for next year.
Heading into the actual arena itself, we are helped to find our seats by another lovely steward and end up parked alongside third base, and in front of a huge contingent of US fans who have travelled over for the games on a tour holiday. Mostly Phillies but with a few Mets mixed in, they’re raucous, flamboyant and funny – shouting and singing along with all the exuberance I expect of an American audience. The view we have is phenomenal, but to be honest it looks like you get a great view from anywhere in this arena, we sat in the nosebleeds in 2019 and still had a magical time.
Pre-show entertainment includes the introduction of the Mascots, the Phillies Phanatic – who according to Wikipedia is meant to be a green flightless bird. Our 4 year old referred to him as “The funny alien” and absolutely fell in love with him. We went hunting for a plushie for her, but alas none on site (at least at this late stage). I must say though that the tongue which protrudes from his… beak… mouth… hole… is more than a little unsettling, but we laughed our heads off at his sassy dancing.
The Mets mascots are well, cute but ultimately less inspiring. They’re just people with giant baseball heads clled Mr. and Mrs. Met. We’re team funny alien. Sorry not sorry. On the VIP green stage, the incredibly talented Jess Glynne warms up the crowd with hits ‘Hold My Hand’, ‘Rather Be’ and ‘Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself’ before giant flags are splayed out on the field for each country’s National Anthem to be sung. First up the USA’s star spangled notes are belted out by Broadway star Marisha Wallace, and then Welsh classical vocalist Katherine Jenkins hitting those insane high notes for God Save The King. It’s still weird to hear King, if I’m honest.
The first pitch is set to be given by Rob McElhenny of Always Sunny and Wrexham fame, Philly born and bred – but he is joined on the field by Kaitlin Olsen (also of Always Sunny fame, also his wife) and Chase Utley (former Phillies player) to instead do a ceremonial ‘First Double Play, roping in Bryce Harper.
We also get a starting line up of players for each team, which included an extremely random set of pyrotechnics – huge flame cannons which weren’t then used at any other time during the game, and then it begins. The first inning is so fast we barely have time to register what’s going on, and though it isn’t an entirely sold out stadium, the sound of the entire ballpark roaring as the Phillies’ Nick Castellanos takes first base is wild.
It’s not a difficult game to get to grips with, which is part of the appeal I think. The native Philly fan behind me is coding all of the game stats into her worksheet from inside the programme though, and that is a step too far down the rabbit hole for me. I’m here for less pure reasons, one of which is to unironically wear my Benchwarmers jersey and see how many people notice. My partner is also wearing a Milwaukee Beers Baseketball jersey and it is niche enough that even amongst baseball fans only a handful of people have picked him up on it.
The game goes a lot faster than I remembered it last time, but these players are not here simply for a jolly weekend. I really love that this is a part of their regular season, so we’re actually getting to see a true unfiltered game day, not just a ceremonial fun game. Having the home fans behind us also really helped with the mood – they were all so animated by every single play, and got our daughter involved in all the clapping/chants/general baseball crowd participation too.
The one thing I will say about US sports is, there are so many breaks during game play! I understand needing re-set time but there’s a lot of mid-game entertainment to cope with it. We loved the Phanatic dressed as a Royal Guard, joined in with the seventh inning stretch, and sung along to ‘Take me out to the ball-game’.
At one point giant baseball shaped beach-balls were thrown into the crowd in a race to get them back to the dugouts, the very strange mascot race which included King Henry VIII, Freddie Mercury, Winston Churchill and Nessie, who cheated bigtime.
We also love the random trivia that comes up with each hitter on the big screen, for example – did you know that Mets’ Jeff McNeil “was a judge at the 2019 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island”? Incidentally, the breaking news in the hot dog community (which obviously runs parallel to the baseball community, 16-time winner Joey Chestnut announced that he has been banned from entering the competition under MLE’s (that’s Major League Eating obviously) new rules. That’s my trivia gift to you today.
The chaotic joy doesn’t stop there, as Phillies’ David Dahl hits the first home run of the game to rapturous applause – the black cab on a plinth in the VIP area explodes in a haze of sparkly fireworks and disco lights, which is apparently now our UK ‘home run tradition’. Love that we’re just making stuff up at this point. I’ll take one Black Cab jersey next year please. It’s hitting close to the end but we make a break for boomstick nachos (that’s a 2 foot box of loaded chilli nachos, that spanned the laps of two adults and one child) which was truly epic. We wanted to grab a cheesesteak but unfortunately they sold out early on, but we did grab one of the very silly and fun baseball bat shaped beer cups. I have no idea what we’re going to do with it… maybe make people who come to our house down pints? But it is a cool souvenir.
Anyway, back to the closing game. The thing that truly baffles me is how anyone hits anything when some of these pitchers are throwing 94mph right at their faces. It is tense and brilliant, as a non-regular baseball watcher, it’s truly engaging and edge-of-your-seat stuff when the bases are loaded. Ultimately after a good fight back, Philly are ousted with a nail biting double play (and a smashed bat!) to end the game 6-5 to the Mets. The entire stadium is up on their feet cheering for what has been a truly spectacular day. With 108,956 people recorded in attendance over the weekend, I think it’s safe to say that MLB has a permanent home in the UK and it can only get better.
Oh, and leaving London at 7.30 on a Sunday is a lovely easy trip and we’re back in the Midlands by around 9.30pm even with a stop. So there’s no excuse, book your tickets next year for a slice of that classic game day atmosphere and a really unique fan festival experience.
