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    There was even someone with a Hanshin Tigers shirt.

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      Originally posted by Capybara View Post
      Am I the only OTFer who went to the game in London yesterday?
      I know of two others: Ray de Galles and E10 Rifle's brother, whose OTF name escapes me just now (apologies if you're reading this, HD).

      Speaking of what people were wearing, why was Megan Windsor wearing black when it was a thousand degrees? She's free to wear whatever she wants, of course, but it made me sweat just looking at her.
      Last edited by Femme Folle; 30-06-2019, 22:10.

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        I read that black was better when in the shade, but white when in the sun.

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          Originally posted by Femme Folle View Post
          What about the Twins?
          The Twins are actually in pretty good shape. That’s true. Target Field is a success.

          It was looking grim for a while. Bud Selig almost contracted the Twins out of existence. I’m surprised that threat hasn’t been made against the Rays and the A’s.

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            Clubs that come extremely close to being moved to Florida (Giants, Twins, White Sox) do better than those that actually play there.

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              Originally posted by Capybara View Post
              Am I the only OTFer who went to the game in London yesterday? It was my first live game since 1996 and I haven't watched any baseball at all since they stopped showing it on free telly in the UK quite a few years ago, so I was quite pleased that I'd retained most of my limited knowledge of the game. When I first watched baseball, I recall being struck by how quickly they went through the early innings. Yesterday, the first inning alone lasted an hour. With the Yankees 6-0 I confidently predicted that the game was as good as over. When the Red Sox made it 6-6, my more cynical companion suggested that, perhaps, MLB wanted to put on something of a 'show'. I could see his point while finding it hard to think that this was the case given it was a proper game. While I enjoyed the scoring, the highlights for me were a couple of double plays around the middle of the game. On crowd noise, the Red Sox had it for me by some way - they also had it on clothing, though both may have been down to where I was sitting. There were plenty of other teams represented on the clothing front and I slightly regretted not wearing some of my 90s Mariners clobber. The venue was great, and I'm not the only one who has commented that baseball looked more at home there than does football.
              I went today, which was another high-scoring game which took up a lot of time without quite reaching the extremes of yesterday's opener. The scoring seemed very concentrated in to bursts, more so than normal to me, which I presume was due to particular pitchers being worked out easily. The game at least swung back and forth at the beginning and end but the long period of scoreless innings in the middle under the blazing sun was a little ho-hum. I presume they were trying to replicate the sleepy post-lunch overs of test cricket.

              Some more regular baseball-watchers on my timeline were decrying the park's dimensions for messing with everyone's stats, not sure how valid that is. It looked and felt great and, as you say, suited baseball far more than football. The food & drink provision was the best it's been since the Olympics - far less huge queues than normal and a better range of options.

              My only two quibbles were the fact that they seemed to cram in more incidental blasts of music & "crowd engagement" nonsense than I've seen at MLB games in the USA (though this may be because they've been at Dodger Stadium which I guess is quite a traditionalist venue) and to marvel at the fact that some people seemed willing to queue for literally hours *many of them while the game was going on* to buy merchandise. It wasn't all Brit wannabes either, the vast majority of people in queues seemed to be American and they were buying bags & bags of the stuff.

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                As an aside, anyone know why this thread doesn't show up on the main Sport forum page for me?

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                  Strange, it does for me.

                  The merch makes little sense to me unless it was for venue-only items that people think they can quickly re-sell for a profit on Ebay (something that happens a lot with bobble head giveaways).

                  The engagement crap does indeed vary a lot by team, with, for instance, the two New York franchises taking rather different approaches. I will let posters guess which club cannot let a half inning pass without some sort of nonsense.
                  Last edited by ursus arctos; 30-06-2019, 23:00.

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                    Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                    I read that black was better when in the shade, but white when in the sun.
                    The colour is irrelevant to the heat performance of cloth, the difference in absorption based on colour is so limited that this signal is below the noise threshold. The key thing is how closely clothing fits. Bedouin robes are black, but loose. Loose is the only operative element here.

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                      Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
                      The food & drink provision was the best it's been since the Olympics - far less huge queues than normal and a better range of options.
                      I wonder if they had to rush extra stock in for today's game - the length of yesterday's would presumably have meant a greater than expected amount of sales. Particularly of fluids, given the temperature.

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                        Originally posted by Janik View Post
                        The colour is irrelevant to the heat performance of cloth, the difference in absorption based on colour is so limited that this signal is below the noise threshold. The key thing is how closely clothing fits. Bedouin robes are black, but loose. Loose is the only operative element here.
                        Really? I always believed it did. Just placebo effect, perhaps.

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                          Ha. The London game is blackout restricted.
                          What does this mean exactly. That folks in NYC and Boston can't watch it on TV?

                          It was looking grim for a while. Bud Selig almost contracted the Twins out of existence. I’m surprised that threat hasn’t been made against the Rays and the A’s.
                          And this, how and why is a club contracted out of existence.

                          In other news, while everyone has been enjoying the Yankees - Red Sox rivalry in London I've been listening to late night play-by-plays from various locales. There's nothing better than drfiting off to sleep lsitening to baseball. As most of them are on dedicated team networks the feed ends around 3am when the game ends but the other night I ended up with a game in Batavia, which must be about as far from the big leagues as it gets, on proper local radio. When I woke up in the early morning I got to enjoy the US farming reports, a load of tractor adverts and the national news reports. Is all this stuff syndicated because one minute they were talking Iowa then St Louis, not to mention the baseball from upstate NewYork.

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                            What does this mean exactly. That folks in NYC and Boston can't watch it on TV?
                            GY was referring to MLB's on-line subscription service, MLB.TV, which generally allows a subscriber to watch broadcasts of games of "out of market" clubs that aren't otherwise available in a given location. By subscribing to MLB.TV, I can watch almost all of the Cubs' games, except for those that are being broadcast locally in the New York market (i.e., against the Mets or Yankees) or nationally by ESPN or Fox. Since I can watch those games without recourse to MLB.TV, I could watch 162 games a year (and probably watch at least some of 100+). Normally, the "blackout" rules don't apply outside the US, because the broadcasters in question don't operate there. I read GY as saying that he couldn't watch on MLB.TV because he is in the UK, notwithstanding the fact that Fox (Saturday) and ESPN (Sunday) weren't showing the games there (was anyone?).

                            And this, how and why is a club contracted out of existence
                            Contraction was a threat that Bud Selig (with the support of a number of MLB owners) used to try to extort new stadia and/or lucrative franchise relocations for the then-Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins. The theory was that just as the league could vote to expand the number of teams that it allowed to compete, it could also reduce that number. The exact mechanism for contraction, particularly the compensation that would have been due the contracted clubs was never determined, as the idea was widely panned and the Twins filed a serious lawsuit. The idea has resurfaced episodically, usually with the idea that compensation would be set by an impartial arbitrator or that the clubs in question would be bought by MLB (essentially by the other clubs) at a negotiated price. MLB bought the Expos from Jeffrey Loria (yes, the same "art dealer" who used the money he got from the Expos to buy the Marlins) and operated the franchise for several seasons before they were able to find satisfactory new ownership who moved the club to Washington.

                            And yes, a lot of local radio is now syndicated here. There are dozens of music stations that have no local personnel at all (having contracted out maintenance of their transmitter).
                            Last edited by ursus arctos; 30-06-2019, 22:58.

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                              Are small earpiece radios (like the one below) to pick up a selected commentary/commentaries broadcast within the stadium a thing in ballparks over there - like they are for cricket over here (and, less so, in rugby - though that's as much to hear the referee's decisions as anything else)?

                              I felt like I could do with one today, it would have added to the experience.

                              Last edited by Ray de Galles; 01-07-2019, 11:08.

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                                No, we've never had those and I found them novel in the UK

                                What we have had for a long time are transistor radios and, now, smartphone apps that allow one to listen to a broadcast. But nowhere near as many people do that for a MLB game as I have seen use those gadgets at an England cricket match.

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                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                  I read GY as saying that he couldn't watch on MLB.TV because he is in the UK, notwithstanding the fact that Fox (Saturday) and ESPN (Sunday) weren't showing the games there (was anyone?
                                  It appeared to be on BBC Sport, but when I tried to log on around the seventh inning it just buffered away so no idea how reliable that stream was.

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                                    Not that it is going to help now, but I expect that one could have accessed the Boston or New York local radio commentary with either the MLB At Bat app or a service like Tune In or Pandora.

                                    Though I think most neutrals would say that both of those broadcast teams are a bit of an acquired taste, particularly the Yankees' combo of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. Though if you did listen to them, you could tell your mates that you have heard baseball commentary from someone who played Dulcinea in Man of La Mancha on Broadway.

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                                      I think this article sums up the experience pretty well (though I had the total opposite experience with regard to the ratio of Brits to Americans) :

                                      London’s MLB crowd offers baseball a new land of opportunity

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                                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                        No, we've never had those and I found them novel in the UK

                                        What we have had for a long time are transistor radios and, now, smartphone apps that allow one to listen to a broadcast. But nowhere near as many people do that for a MLB game as I have seen use those gadgets at an England cricket match.
                                        I don't know if I mentioned it on the CWC thread but I and thousands of others turned up for my first game of the tournament with my regular earpiece radio to find out that the ICC were not broadcasting on their frequency so you had to pay £10 for one of their radios to hear TMS (and only TMS not Sky's commentary, if you're peculiar enough to prefer that, because Star Sports are an official partner of the event).
                                        Last edited by Ray de Galles; 01-07-2019, 12:29.

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                                          I find the commentary arrangements for the CWC baffling.

                                          The streams that I've been able to get have an international cast of dozens including Atherton, Allison Mitchell, Hasha Bogle, Ian Bishop and others, who also voice the official highlights posted on YouTube. The streams are from Oz, but I assumed that that was also the Sky team, given the involvement of Sky commentators. Is it not?

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                                            ICC events have a global English language TV commentary - so there's the same commentators everywhere. Which is why there's no Bumble but instead includes Mark Nicholas, who left Sky some twenty years ago, and Alison Mitchell, who I don't think has ever done men's cricket on Sky.

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                                              Aggers mentioned yesterday on TMS that they were alos broadcasting on ICC radio as well as ABC Grandstand and Radio Sport New Zealand.

                                              Channel 2 Group of Dubai have audio rights to the World Cup but they seem very light on mentioning what their Cricket Radio actually produces. However, the ICC Other Rights page says "The Dubai based organisation also produce an English language world feed which they distribute to partners who do not do their own commentary. Radio rights licensees for the ICC World Twenty20 2016 included BBC and Talksport (United Kingdom), All India Radio (India), Radio 4 (UAE), SABC (South Africa), APNA 107FM (Pakistan), Bangladesh Betar (Bangladesh), SLBC (Sri Lanka) and TBS Radio Network (West Indies). "

                                              It's all very confusing, unless Channel 2 Group sub licence the actual commentary to another station?

                                              Edit: And that's just radio, ignoring the commentary with pictures.

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                                                Ah ha. It's Sunset+Vine producing for ICC TV.

                                                Commentators list

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                                                  Normally, the "blackout" rules don't apply outside the US, because the broadcasters in question don't operate there. I read GY as saying that he couldn't watch on MLB.TV because he is in the UK, notwithstanding the fact that Fox (Saturday) and ESPN (Sunday) weren't showing the games there (was anyone?).
                                                  I should have realised, as the same thing happens with NFL Gamepass for the London games, which are shown on Sky (and other games shown on Sky for that matter). It's just such a novelty for baseball so it didn't even occur to me.

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                                                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                    No, we've never had those and I found them novel in the UK

                                                    What we have had for a long time are transistor radios and, now, smartphone apps that allow one to listen to a broadcast. But nowhere near as many people do that for a MLB game as I have seen use those gadgets at an England cricket match.
                                                    I've just spoken to a colleague who blagged hospitality for yesterday's match and he said the earpiece radios were provided there so they obviously sensed the need for them.


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