British baseball fans are quick to learn how the different US time zones relate to our own.  You only have to mess-up the start time of one important game (and we’ve all done it) before you imprint them in your brain. Typically we know to add five hours on to times listed in Eastern Time (ET), six hours for Central Time (CT) and eight hours for Pacific Time (PT). That 1pm start in New York therefore begins at 6pm in Britain, while a 3pm start in Minnesota is 9pm here and a 7pm first pitch in Los Angeles makes for a sleepy 3am start.
However, the switch to daylight saving time can complicate matters when the two countries don’t change at the same time. That has been the case this year as the U.S. has moved to DST this past weekend, while British Summer Time will not be in effect until Sunday 29 March. So for the next three weeks, those well-remembered time zone sums need to be revised. We are now four hours ahead of ET, five ahead of CT and seven ahead of PT.
And, yes, I have written this after nearly missing the start of a game on MLB.tv today, despite knowing that the US was moving to DST early.
5 comments
Matt, thanks for this article. It truly is a public service announcement for all those of us who always look at their daily schedule in relation to the first pitch of the game of their favorite MLB team (New York Mets in my case).
But this article has also prompted me to come back to something which I have been thinking about for several years now. Great Britain is not blessed with floodlit baseball diamonds which means that we are restricted to weekend games only, due to the lack of daylight.
It would be great for British baseball if we could play some midweek games. How about Wednesday Night Baseball?
Countries like Spain where the sun sets later than the UK, have chosen to align themselves with Central European Time, not Greenwich Mean Time. If the UK was to do the same, between 25 May and 24 July the sun would set after 10pm, which allows for a 3-hour game to be played between 7pm and 10pm. Players head to the diamond immediately after school/work and with slightly reduced pre-game we could have evening games in the summer. Even if we don’t have official league games, even non-official exhibition games around the country would be good for the game.
In terms of baseball I think countries like the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Germany have an advantage compared to the UK as a result of longer days.
Over the years I have not managed to find the time to look further into this. Does anyone know which government agency determines which time zone the UK is aligned with?
I am not sure whether longer days will help reduce crime or whether changing the time zone will affect the competitiveness of the London Stock Exchange or any other UK interests, but maybe we can start a campaign going. I am sure other outdoor sports would be just as interested as baseball in this. I know this proposal is a long shot (and possibly slightly bizarre), but if any of your visitors know anything on this subject or have any opinions on the potential effects on British baseball, then that would be very interesting to consider.
Hi Aspi. It’s an interesting proposal, one that could benefit many activities on top of baseball. The Local Government Association has previously put forward the suggestion to do what you suggest (i.e. BST would then be two hours ahead of GMT), but there is a lot of opposition from Scotland towards this apparently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6093560.stm
Hi Matt, not sure if you caught this on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday. It’s a half-hour story about how someone fell in love with baseball and explains why he enjoys it, particularly the Red Sox. I was only shown it when my dad saw an article on it in the current RadioTimes.
It’s currently on BBC iPlayer, with a second episode aired presumably next week. It’s called “Baseball and Me” if you want to find it and give it a listen. Just had a listen to the first 5 minutes and it sounds pretty good. Just thought it’d be worth a mention. 🙂
Aspi,
The argument for the shift could be strengthened with an environmental case, if it is indeed true that the change would lead to reduced energy usage. The case is not clear-cut, though:
http://tinyurl.com/b2cv4w
There has been the odd exhibition game played on a weekday evening in recent years.
Croydon, for instance, played a GB Juniors squad on a Wednesday evening in the summer a few years back.
Matt and Joe, thanks for providing this additional information. Although this is way way down in the list of priorities for British Baseball, I will look into this at a suitable time. I see that there has already been an unsuccessful campaign to change the UK time zone 3 years ago, but hopefully the chances of this have not been lost.
Thanks guys.