If you are a baseball fan, or an Australian, and you haven’t heard this news then I don’t know where you have been for the last week. Because this is big news.
Aussies aren’t the first people who come to mind when you think of baseball but the MLB hosting their 2014 Opening Series at the Sydney Cricket Ground could certainly change that. However, people are a bit worried.
Opening Day is big in the US. And not just normal-Americans-being-over-the-top. I mean it’s HUGE. President-throwing-out-the-first-pitch kind of huge. Which is why Americans haven’t exactly been happy about the MLB’s decisions to host Opening Series in other countries (they’ve been held in Japan, Mexico and Puerto Rico – if you count that as another country). So the MLB has to consider some things when starting on this awesome new endeavour.
1) Seating. The SCG is huge. Massive. Much bigger than a normal baseball diamond (if my eyes don’t deceive me) so there will be temporary seating set up on the actual field. This means, also, that there are going to be seats that are WAAAAAAAAY far away from home plate. Those people may not be happy if they can’t see anything, so they better work it out in advance. TVs, perhaps?
2) Awareness. The announcement came one year out. While that’s great in terms of press people are going to have to pound the pavement to make sure the buzz doesn’t go away. There are a lot of big things happening between then and now that could affect the audience (AFL Grand Final, the Ashes x2…). Also, from what I hear on Twitter, the MLB didn’t do a great job last year with those in the US. Someone even told me that no one knew if Opening Day was even happening. Ouch.
3) Transport. It’s at the SCG so it’s REALLY easy to get there (at least from the City) but with all the tourists coming in… it’s bound to be anarchy. I swear, if I don’t end up getting tickets to the game (which I have to do, ASAP) I will be no where near the city on those days. Lost tourists – is there anything worse?
4) A Dodgers/Diamondbacks fight. I mean hey… they did it last week. What’s to stop them from doing it again? Wait. Actually. I take it back. This would not be something that could go wrong – a live replay of the fight would be SICK.
