BaseballMK would like to apologise as we have been forced to withdraw all of our teams from the BBF Leagues for the remainder of this season.

We have spent most of the last five years in negotiation with our diamond landlord. We have been very unhappy with the constant and very steep increase in fees, accompanied by the rapid deterioration in the standard of our diamond. Anyone who has played at Milton Keynes recently will have noted the backstop repaired with scrap wooden planks, and the fact that the batters boxes are now several inches lower than home plate, which is itself a couple of inches below the field. Unfortunately, our negotiation is now concluding and we have nowhere to play for the remainder of this season.

The additional commitment required to play every game away from home, with the rather lengthy journey we make to most of our games, has proved a little more than our families are ready to allow. It is for this reason, and with great sadness, that we feel we have to end our baseball early for this year and withdraw from the leagues.

This may sound like a terminal problem, but that is far from the case for BaseballMK. BaseballMK has an allocated and ring-fenced budget of over £320,000 to build a new diamond. The club executive team are working very hard with the council so that we will have a new purpose built baseball field ready for the beginning of next season. Anyone who has visited our web site should have seen the plans for the development at Emerson Valley. We have also now received a counter offer from another parish within the city; this offer is being studied for feasibility this week, and would provide an even higher spec adult and youth baseball diamond. The only real problem we have is that the wheels of council seem to turn very slowly, but we are really confident that they are turning and we will be back soon.