RedSox and Yankees will be in London next year on June 29-30.

Humphrey

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Aug 3, 2010
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They already play 20+ games per year on turf so does it really matter much with respect to injury risk to add 2 more? Concern about this seems unwarranted to me.
I'd vote for turf over some grass surface that was put together at the last minute (that is, sod laid down or, even worse, those "trays" like they had at Reliant Stadium in Houston that were the prime reason Wes Welker blew his knee out). I think the worst thing about turf in this day and age is heat retention and I don't think you have to worry that much about that in London.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I'd vote for turf over some grass surface that was put together at the last minute (that is, sod laid down or, even worse, those "trays" like they had at Reliant Stadium in Houston that were the prime reason Wes Welker blew his knee out). I think the worst thing about turf in this day and age is heat retention and I don't think you have to worry that much about that in London.
Thing is, it sounds like this turf is going down last minute (article says the process for putting it down over the soccer pitch starts on Thursday). Not sure how much more safe freshly installed turf is than freshly installed sod.
 

Preacher

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Tickets printed. I also emailed them to myself because there’s a better than even chance I forget them when I leave and at least I can have the hotel print them off again.
 

Blue Monkey

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Tickets printed. I also emailed them to myself because there’s a better than even chance I forget them when I leave and at least I can have the hotel print them off again.
Is the ticket print option the only way to get tickets? I’ve been expecting mine in the mail...
 

B1946

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Feb 14, 2012
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I'll be there both days. I was upset when tix sold out the first time, but I got them the second time around. I'll be in nosebleed seats lol
 

Harry Hooper

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Artificial turf, plus massive foul territory and a real lack of seating close to the action. MLB has executed this poorly. LINK

Maybe they should adopt cricket rules for these games and eliminate the foul lines.



 

Al Zarilla

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Just noticed the games have different starting times. Is the earlier time a getaway day (Sunday) thing? Not cool for people in the West, and middle of the night in Hawaii.
 

LesterFan

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Just noticed the games have different starting times. Is the earlier time a getaway day (Sunday) thing? Not cool for people in the West, and middle of the night in Hawaii.
3 PM local time. Guessing they didn't want to start it too late for the locals on a Sunday.
 

54thMA

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Artificial turf, plus massive foul territory and a real lack of seating close to the action. MLB has executed this poorly. LINK

Maybe they should adopt cricket rules for these games and eliminate the foul lines.



What a terrible layout that is; looks like there is just as much foul territory as fair.

What a God awful idea this was.
 

54thMA

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That's the best configuration they could come up with? Bullshit. They just want the London fans to see homeruns, cause MLB thinks that is exciting.
The gashouse gorillas are going to hit so many bombs the Londoners will think the Blitz is happening all over again.

They should have moved the right field fence in about 100 feet to make the gashouse gorillas feel at home.
 

Hendu for Kutch

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I'm sitting in lower CF on Saturday and it looks like those might be some of the best seats in the house! I might be closer than the triangle at Fenway.
 

BaseballJones

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The Yankees have had Stanton, Didi, and Judge miss tons of games and still have hit 134 homers in just 80 games.
They've hit at least one home run in 28 straight games, a major league record.
They currently have six players who have hit 11 or more homers (Didi, Judge, and Stanton - who hit a combined 92 last year - are not among them).
The Red Sox are sending Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez - who have given up a combined 27 homers in 186 innings - to the mound.
Centerfield is just 385 feet away.

So...

What's the over/under on home runs the Yankees hit over the two games? I'll suggest 7.5 and you guys tell me if you're going with the over or the under.
 

Ale Xander

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Oct 31, 2013
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The Yankees have had Stanton, Didi, and Judge miss tons of games and still have hit 134 homers in just 80 games.
They've hit at least one home run in 28 straight games, a major league record.
They currently have six players who have hit 11 or more homers (Didi, Judge, and Stanton - who hit a combined 92 last year - are not among them).
The Red Sox are sending Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez - who have given up a combined 27 homers in 186 innings - to the mound.
Centerfield is just 385 feet away.

So...

What's the over/under on home runs the Yankees hit over the two games? I'll suggest 7.5 and you guys tell me if you're going with the over or the under.
Porcello might allow 8 himself.
 

teddywingman

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Jul 31, 2009
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The Yankees have had Stanton, Didi, and Judge miss tons of games and still have hit 134 homers in just 80 games.
They've hit at least one home run in 28 straight games, a major league record.
They currently have six players who have hit 11 or more homers (Didi, Judge, and Stanton - who hit a combined 92 last year - are not among them).
The Red Sox are sending Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez - who have given up a combined 27 homers in 186 innings - to the mound.
Centerfield is just 385 feet away.

So...

What's the over/under on home runs the Yankees hit over the two games? I'll suggest 7.5 and you guys tell me if you're going with the over or the under.
Over.
 

Murderer's Crow

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Jul 15, 2005
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The Yankees have had Stanton, Didi, and Judge miss tons of games and still have hit 134 homers in just 80 games.
They've hit at least one home run in 28 straight games, a major league record.
They currently have six players who have hit 11 or more homers (Didi, Judge, and Stanton - who hit a combined 92 last year - are not among them).
The Red Sox are sending Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez - who have given up a combined 27 homers in 186 innings - to the mound.
Centerfield is just 385 feet away.

So...

What's the over/under on home runs the Yankees hit over the two games? I'll suggest 7.5 and you guys tell me if you're going with the over or the under.
385 but also 16 feet tall, apparently.
 

DeadlySplitter

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it's going to feel like a weird midseason exhibition, especially with the current standings between the two.
 

mauidano

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Just noticed the games have different starting times. Is the earlier time a getaway day (Sunday) thing? Not cool for people in the West, and middle of the night in Hawaii.
4:00 AM start on Sunday. Probably will just record it and watch it when I wake up.
 

TomTerrific

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All kidding aside, it was quite the scene. A woman wearing a Red Sox warmup-type jacket came into the Club section of the plane, wouldn’t stop talking at the top of her lungs, got into an argument with a couple of the other passengers, and then shoved the steward when he tried to intervene. She was half escorted half dragged off the plane, followed by her husband and (possibly) son. Then we all had to wait for 45 minutes while they found and pulled their bags from the hold.

I missed the whole thing sitting back in the economy section, but my wife had a front row seat to the whole thing and said it was almost worth the price of the game and airline tickets just for that.
 

DeadlySplitter

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Dave O'Brien is on the trip doing radio with Joe. DOB is actually better on radio, so that may be worth seeking out over the national broadcast.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Looking at the layout, it's not clear to me why they couldn't have moved home plate back a bit more, so that it was, say, 340 down the lines and 395 to CF, with a little less foul territory.
 

B1946

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Feb 14, 2012
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Anyone here know the best places to go to have a chance of running into a Sox player in London? Not gonna lie, I want to politely fangirl
 

Soxfan in Fla

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Flew in from Tampa, land of too many Yankee fans Thursday night. Plenty of Sox fans on the flight. Didn’t see a single MFY fan.
 

teddywingman

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Looking at the layout, it's not clear to me why they couldn't have moved home plate back a bit more, so that it was, say, 340 down the lines and 395 to CF, with a little less foul territory.
It's so dumb. They made the distances short and the field arrangement basic and boring.
Ballfields are better with irregular dimensions. Maybe the miles of foul ground will be interesting, but I doubt it.
 

TomTerrific

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Don't know what others experiences today have been, but I've encountered no shortage of Red Sox fans wearing shirts and hats. I may have spotted a total of 3 Yankees fans, two with hats and one with a Jeter jersey. Certainly the RS fans are far more visible, hoping that's the case at the stadium as well.
 

Preacher

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That stadium is not a great set up for sports, the way we are used to in the US. Forgetting the field dimensions and everything else, so many short comings. There are only concessions on the first level. Our seats were on the second level so we had to go down 4 flights of stairs to get a hot dog or a beer. There were no vendors in the stands at all, at least not in our section. I didn’t see a single TV in the stadium. So, unless you had a view of the field, you had no idea what was happening. They weren’t even pumping the sound in the concourses. Just a very odd experience. On a less important note, no WiFi in the stadium and the cell phone signal was super spotty.
 

YTF

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Not a big fan of the venue, but I think they did the just about the best they could with what they had. I too thought perhaps home plate could have been further back to add a bit more length to the outfield, but other than that I see any other realistic changes that could have been made. It was a tremendous 3 1/2 week effort to transform a soccer pitch into a baseball field. The excess foul territory certainly didn't hamper the offenses and though some asymmetric quirks in the configuration might have seemed cool, that extra cost and effort isn't going to be made for a one off, two game series.
 

Orel Miraculous

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While it's been home to West Ham United for the last few years, let's not forget that it started its life as an Olympic central venue, and that's something MLB has some experience with in the form of Turner Field. Yes, Turner was made permanently into a baseball stadium, while London Stadium will return to a soccer pitch almost immediately after tomorrow's game, but it's not like they had to work things in awkwardly to make it work for baseball. Rather, they must have wanted this.
Is this post a joke? Atlanta’s Olympic stadium was designed with the specific intent that it would later be converted into a baseball field, and it still took months of major reconstruction to make it happen. You’re comparing a stadium that was deliberately built with baseball in mind to what the Sox played on today? Again, is this a joke?
 

DoyleCanBoyd

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Jul 16, 2005
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I went yesterday and had a very present experience. Ya know, except for the final score. I thought there were more Yankee fans, but the Yankee fans sitting in front of me thought there were more Red Sox fans, so maybe it was pretty close to 50/50. There were lots of Brits there just to check it out. I was in left field on the first level, fairly close to the Yankee bullpen. We had barkers in our section: besides a beer vendor, there was somebody selling Pimms something or other, a girl selling "cocktails" (although it wasn't clear what the cocktails were, and she didn't seem to be getting a lot of action), a Krispy Kreme vendor, and a guy selling "sweets and fudge". It was kind of unusual, but I had a blast, and it was great walking around London the day before and seeing all the Red Sox and Yankees hats everywhere. I did notice that the Boston fans represented all 4 Boston teams (with the Celtics being a distant 4th), but the New Yorkers were in strictly Yankees gear. I think I saw 1 New York football Giants hat. Lots of random jerseys and hats, I saw almost every team represented. My girlfriend wore her Phillies hat, and she ran into other Phillies fans.
 

sheamonu

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Went and talked my way in to the corporate section. That was a great experience as I got to meet Reggie Smith and could’ve kicked Bucky Dent up the hole but showed great restraint in not doing so. The field was a bit of a joke. Routine singles zipped through to the wall, power alleys at about 340 with an 8 foot wall, acres of foul ground. 30 runs wasn’t out of line. Meghan looked great after the baby.

She says “hi”
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Is this post a joke? Atlanta’s Olympic stadium was designed with the specific intent that it would later be converted into a baseball field, and it still took months of major reconstruction to make it happen. You’re comparing a stadium that was deliberately built with baseball in mind to what the Sox played on today? Again, is this a joke?
It's almost as if all the posters here complaining about the field dimensions and layout have no understanding of architecture or engineering.

Oh, wait. That's right, they don't.

The setup isn't ideal, but given the temporary nature of this event, the notion that they could've done better but chose not to out of laziness (or simply didn't consider every possible alternative) is patently absurd.

But messageboarders gonna messageboard.
 

AB in DC

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Jul 10, 2002
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The field was a bit of a joke. Routine singles zipped through to the wall, power alleys at about 340 with an 8 foot wall, acres of foul ground. 30 runs wasn’t out of line.
BABIP allowed:
(if I did the math right)

6/29 Yankees 15/36 (.417)
6/29 Red Sox 16/31 (.516)
6/30 Yankees 12/29 (.414)
6/30 Red Sox 12/30 (.400)

That's...a bit much.
 

Spacemans Bong

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I went both days. The venue was fine, the power alleys were absolutely not 340. The high scores were due to the heat (Saturday was the hottest day in my 12 years here, just unbearable) and both pitching staffs sucking eggs.

Best shirsey I saw was a Daniel Bard, best jersey was a Garry Templeton Padres jersey. Also saw a guy whose kid was wearing a 1986 AL East champs t-shirt.
 

Soxy

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Most notable one I saw was a Ryan Lavarnway Red Sox shirsey.

I also saw a guy wearing a Celtics cap and a Kyrie Celtics jersey. That was.......confusing.