Yankees, Red Sox to clash in London

NEW YORK (AP):

Major League Baseball (MLB) intends to announce next week the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will play two games at London's Olympic Stadium on June 29-30 next year, a person familiar with the planning told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity on Thursday because no public comments had been authorised.

"I'm excited about going over there," Yankees slugger Aaron Judge said.

Boston will be the home team for both of MLB's first regular-season games in Europe.

"One of the biggest rivalries in all of sports," Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly said. "We'll see how the players recover. And that's always going to be big to take into account travel-wise."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan scheduled a news conference for Tuesday with baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred but did not announce the subject matter.

"I've never been to London, so I'm looking forward to that," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Can grow our game, obviously, in Europe and hopefully getting two big teams out there will be a great thing for the sport."

Baseball officials have long hoped for games in London and settled last year on Olympic Stadium, which is in its second season as home of West Ham United of the English Premier League. Because it originally was built for a 400-metre track running, Olympic Stadium is wider than other large stadiums in the London area and can best accommodate the dimensions of a baseball field.

Each player on the trip will get an extra US$60,000 (around J$7.4 million) for participating in the games, according to baseball's collective bargaining agreement.