Hot dogs, emojis and dad dancing: what's not to like about baseball?

Before last week baseball had been something of a sporting blind spot for me – as it is, I suspect, for most people on this side of the Atlantic.

Wembley Stadium has successfully staged NFL matches and basketball fans can see NBA stars playing at London's Millennium Dome (as I will insist on calling it till my dying day) but baseball remains a quintessentially American game.

Of course, we're vaguely aware of the Yanks' enthusiasm for this strange hybrid of cricket and rounders which crops up late at night on our TV screens when we're drunkenly searching for the more, er, racy channels.