By Richard McIlroy
January 20 2018

Fleet Street Goes Baseball Bonkers Shock!!. No more will we have to search the results page, somewhere between Archery and Billiards to find how our favourite team have done. If the past 2 days are anything to go by we will be reading about the game for summers infinitum. Errr..Actually I am lying.

[Originally published February 8, 2001]

The headlines screamed out from the page “UNITED LINK UP WITH THE YANKEES” there was even a picture of Old Trafford ‘hard man’ Roy Keane on the back of the Express bat poised in full Yankee uniform .

Could it be true ? Was the ‘Worlds Biggest Football Club’ (copyright all football journos) really getting it together with ‘Americas Team’ (copyright Yankees PR department) to bring big time Baseball to the UK? Well, no is the answer. Rummage through the hyperbolic headlines and what you will find in the cold light of day is that all it comes down to is not so much goals or homers but pounds and dollars.

The Yankees no more care that Baseball is developed in Manchester, or the rest of the country, as Alex Ferguson cares that the US produces better footballers in order to strengthen its shaky domestic game. What the two do care about though is that there are more famous N.Y. caps on heads over here, and as many red shirts on the streets of New York as you there now is in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpar and Tokyo.

There is obviously more in this for United, one market analyst says that this will only quicken Uniteds move into a new European Super League as they will just be too big for the Premiership, but what about the Yankees what do they if they get too big for the AL or the MLB altogether. Are we now set for an even more predictable race than we are getting?

Reports suggest that the reception to this deal in the States is lukewarm to say the least, the New York papers, unlike their Fleet Street counterparts deemed it so uninspiring that it was relegated to the inside business pages, which of course speaks volumes. This is a business deal 100%, nothing to do with what goes on in the diamond or the centre circle, sure Derek Jeter and David Cone may stumble bewildered out on to the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ (copyright bright young PR high flyer) and take the muted applause of the United faithful, or at least those who can be bothered to put their prawn sandwiches down but that’s as far as it will go.

United have said that as part of the deal they will tour North America in the future, but when they say tour its meant in the same way as rock band may tour, or an author tours branches of Waterstones, they have a product to to sell.

Don’t make a fool of yourself by explaining to your Baseball shy mates in the pub that this is the twinning of two of the most successful clubs in the World, who can boast multiple Premiership trophies and Pennants, this is a deal between two of the strongest brands in a very small market, they happen all the time.