How big is the sport in the UK and is it growing in popularity?
Baseball in the UK goes back to the 19th century, and was a large minority sport in this country before the Second World War, when there were hundreds of teams. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the game shrank dramatically, though it has now started to expand once again. The British Baseball Federation has around 50 clubs and 80 member teams in the UK, adding up to around 2,000 youth and adult participants plus thousands of children and young people who come in contact with the sports through school and Local Authority programmes. By contrast, the British Softball Federation only dates from 1984 but thanks to an explosion of recreational corporate Co-ed Slowpitch teams in the late 1980s, there are currently around 400 affiliated softball teams in 20 leagues in England, Scotland and Wales plus all those school and Local Authority participants and a lot of one-off corporate softball activity. Softball, too, is growing, with existing leagues adding teams and a new league or
