The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are crossing the pond for MLB's first London Series this weekend (10 a.m. ET Sunday on ESPN).

Ahead of their games Saturday and Sunday at London Stadium, we asked players from both squads about the trip, from sightseeing to future MLB games abroad to Harry Potter.

Have you ever been to London? What are you most looking forward to there?

Michael Chavis, Red Sox second baseman: No. Never been before. I'm looking forward to it being the first game over there and being a part of the historic part of it. My sister is going as well, and she's big on history, especially British history, like the kings and all of the stuff like that. I'm excited to just share that experience with her, let her see all the stuff she's wanted to experience. She's wanted to go to London for pretty much her whole life.

"The biggest thing that I would never really do, but I'm going to do, is The Eye, the big ol' carousel thing. That's something I rarely do. I don't like heights. I don't like doing it, but my wife said I have to go."

Red Sox relief pitcher Marcus Walden

Even to this day, she still obsesses over that stuff -- TV, movies, all of that stuff. It'll be cool to experience that along with baseball. Just the way I work in general, I'm not very good at planning things, and she's much better at planning than I am. I'll let her plan everything we're going to do.

James Paxton, Yankees starting pitcher: I've never been there before. Have never been over to Europe, so looking forward to checking that out. Going to go around and check out some museums and stuff when we get time. Just looking forward to the games, you know? It's going to be fun in that stadium and just a different experience altogether.

Marcus Walden, Red Sox relief pitcher: No. The biggest thing that I would never really do, but I'm going to do, is The Eye, the big ol' carousel thing. That's something I rarely do. I don't like heights. I don't like doing it, but my wife said I have to go. That's the one thing I would never do but I'm gonna do. I don't know a whole lot about London. Walking around is going to be cool. My cousin is married to a professor at Oxford. She gave me a list of things that I need to go see. It'll be cool to have her come into the game and have them show us around.

Other than teammates, is anyone making the trip with you?

Jackie Bradley Jr., Red Sox outfielder: Including me? Nine people. Parents, brother, sister, wife, kids and in-laws.

Brett Gardner, Yankees outfielder: My kids are going to be there, so they want to see a castle. So we're going to find a castle to see, which shouldn't be too difficult. We'll make a good time of it. So it should be a good trip.

"My sister is going as well, and she's big on history, especially British history, like the kings and all of the stuff like that. I'm excited to just share that experience with her, let her see all the stuff she's wanted to experience. She's wanted to go to London for pretty much her whole life."

Red Sox second baseman Michael Chavis

Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox shortstop: My whole family. All of my family except my dad. ... Maybe six people.

Walden: My wife and my two cousins out there.

Chavis: My mom and my sister. And my girlfriend is going as well.

David Price, Red Sox starting pitcher: My mom and my dad.

What do you think of playing at London Stadium?

Walden: It'll be unique with the small field (it's only 385 feet to dead center at London Stadium). There's going to be some homers hit. Hopefully we're hitting more. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be smaller than Yankee Stadium. Better get the ball on the ground.

Price: [It's] smaller than my high school field.

"[It's] smaller than my high school field."

Red Sox starting pitcher David Price

Gardner: Obviously, it's not a normal baseball stadium that we're all accustomed to. They have to build dugouts and all that. So I'm not worried about the dimensions or anything because we're both going to be playing on the same surface, so I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'm most looking forward to seeing how the fans react to us being over there. It's going to be a blast.

Chavis: That's gotta hold a bunch of people then. I don't even know what the biggest crowd I've played in front of [was]. Obviously, it's sometime this year. There's not 30,000 in High-A. That's probably going to be the biggest crowd I've played in front of. I mean, I'm excited for everything. The fact that it's in London is kinda badass.

What do you want British fans to see in person?

Bogaerts: A tie game, a one-run game would be nice. Not, like, a 3-0 win or a position player pitching. Even if it's 9-8, it can be 2-1, a tight game where there's runners on base where a hit would tie the game. Something like that would be nice.

Walden: They are going to see it: two of the best franchises in baseball going out there. Think about those 52 guys -- you're talking about 20 of the best in the game. I think they're going to see pretty much everything in a baseball series that you can see in those two games. I haven't seen too many Red Sox/Yankee games where you don't see everything within the game.

Zack Britton, Yankees relief pitcher: It's going to be tough to, I guess, replace soccer, right? The history of soccer is there. Rugby. Cricket. Stuff like that. But hopefully the games are exciting. That's how you draw fans in. You see something new, somebody that's never seen baseball, and if they see some action, and they see some excitement, some good games, that's the best way to draw some fans in, get them interested in baseball, maybe some of the young kids over there too.

Where else should MLB consider playing games?

Britton: I would honestly really love a regular-season game going to the Dominican. A place that obviously has strong ties to just the talent that they've pumped into MLB. That would be awesome going there or some of the South American countries. I know they went to Mexico, but I'm talking about how we've got guys from Panama, Nicaragua. That would be really cool. Hopefully, eventually, a spot like that that has active players in the big leagues. The turnout, I think, would be incredible.

Bogaerts: They already do Japan. Europe. The Dominican. I think the atmosphere there is ridiculous.

"Anywhere people are excited to watch it. Anywhere."

Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr.

Chavis: Given the popularity of baseball in the Latin American countries, I think that would be a good idea. Even Australia -- there's a decent number of Australian guys in the major and minor leagues. That would be a cool way to expand over there, but I think it would have to be a progression thing. It can't be one of those things where you jump into it and expect to take off, but if you inch into it, it could be successful.

Paxton: Oh, man. I don't know. London's going to be a great start, getting the game into Europe. Maybe if they go to maybe different European cities at some point. Who knows? I know it's kind of tough on travel. You can't really go too far. But you know, Japan and London are pretty close on either side. So who knows if they expand it further at some point.

Walden: Vancouver is a great spot. Going back up to Montreal is a great spot. I know they were talking about going to Mexico City. I still think if we had a team in Mexico City, it would be a tough travel no matter who you're playing for. Expansion team-wise: Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville. I think Nashville would be a good spot for the southern part of our country, but outside of the U.S., I really don't know. Going out there and playing one or two games is pretty cool, but actually having a team there is a different situation. It's going to be tough travel for those five days for us.

Bradley: Anywhere people are excited to watch it. Anywhere.

Are you a Harry Potter fan?

Chavis: Dude, so growing up, I think it was not this offseason but the offseason before, it was the first time I saw the Harry Potter movies. It was one of those things where, like, I was behind on it. As they were coming out, I was like, "I don't want to try and catch up," so I just never got around to doing it. In the offseason, it was like, "Dude, everybody says those movies are incredible. Maybe I'll watch them." I got together with my girlfriend, and we binged them, and they're awesome. And then we ended up going to Harry Potter World and Disney and all of that and did the Butterbeer. It's awesome. I'm all-in on it.

"I'm just going to say I'm a Gryffindor and leave it at that. They're the normal ones, the good-hearted people."

Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks

I made fun of my sister's friends 'cause they were really big on it. They had the cape or cloak. They spent, like, $100 on that, and I was like, "Y'all are ridiculous," but then I was kinda like, "I kinda get it. I might get one."

[Favorite character?] Dobby. I like Dobby a lot. He's cute, he's nice, he's a good dude. I feel like he gets overlooked a lot, but I like his personality. I thought it was cool.

[Do you have a Hogwarts House?] I'm not that deep yet. I might watch it again and make a final decision.

Hicks: I just want to go to Harry Potter World or the original Harry Potter [Studio]. I'm a big Harry Potter fan.

[What House would you consider yourself?] I don't know because it says a lot about a person and what you're like. I'm just going to say I'm a Gryffindor and leave it at that. They're the normal ones, the good-hearted people.

Paxton: Yeah, big fan when I was younger. Still really like the movies. Didn't get through all the books. I have them all on audiobooks, so definitely want to do that at some point. I think we're planning on checking out the Harry Potter exhibit. I've been to the one in Florida with Hogsmeade and stuff like that. So just looking forward to checking it out and walking around.

Bradley: I've watched all of the movies. I think it would be a disservice for me to call myself a true fan because I have seen some very, very passionate fans about Harry Potter. I'm at the beginning stages. I've seen people dress up and actually know the spell names and stuff like that. I don't know all of that. It would be a disservice to call myself a true, true fan.

[Favorite character?] Let's go with Dumbledore. He's considered one of the leaders and someone who's trying to help Harry along the way.

British number eight Liam Broady has missed out a place in the main draw of Wimbledon after losing 3-6 0-6 6-2 6-4 6-3 to Frenchman Gregoire Barrere in the final round of qualifying.

He had been two sets up after 50 minutes against Barrere, ranked 170 places higher at 117 in the world.

Broady's best run at Wimbledon was reaching the second round in 2015.

In women's qualifying, Britain's Samantha Murray lost 4-6 6-2 3-6 to Spain's Paula Badosa.

Germany's 2013 Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki also failed to make the main draw after she lost 0-6 6-4 6-4 to Lesley Kerkhove of the Netherlands.

Reigning Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber is through to the semi-finals of Eastbourne after beating Romania's Simona Halep in straight sets.

Germany's world number five Kerber, twice a runner-up at Eastbourne, won 6-4 6-3 in one hour and 13 minutes.

Kerber converted five of her seven break points against Halep.

The three-time Grand Slam champion will next face unseeded Tunisian Ons Jabeur - the conqueror of Britain's Johanna Konta - on Friday.

"I am really happy how I played," Kerber told BBC Sport. "To play against Simona, you know you have to play the best tennis."

Jabeur continued her fine run with a 1-6 7-5 6-3 victory over France's Alize Cornet.

Third seed Kiki Bertens beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-4 3-6 6-4 in their quarter-final, while Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova faces Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova later on Thursday.

WAYNESFIELD, OH. –  There’s a lot of incentive on tap for the 11th annual Jack Hewitt Classic presented by K&L Ready Mix, Helms and Son Excavating and Kistler Racing Products on July 3 at Waynesfield Raceway Park.

Besides the great pay-out for the FAST winged 410 sprints, Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series (BOSS) non-wing sprints and the K&L Ready Mix National Racing Alliance (NRA) Sprint Invaders (360 sprints), race promoter Shane Helms has incentives for drivers to race in more than one division.

The event honors racing legend and National Sprint Car Hall of Fame member Jack Hewitt, a Troy, Ohio native.

Hewitt, who made a name for himself as an champion with the All Star Circuit of Champions, USAC Silver Crown Series and had wins with the World of Outlaws, USAC Sprints and Midgets and wins across the country, in winged and non-wing sprints, is known for his no-nonsense attitude and love of the sport.

He also competed in the 1998 Indianapolis 500.

The FAST winged 410 sprint feature winner will take home $4,000 ($400 to start the A-main) while the NRA feature winner will claim $2,000 to win and the BOSS winner will take home $1,500.

If one driver can win two out of the three A-mains there’s a $1,000 bonus. If a driver can win all three A-mains he or she will walk away with a $5,000 bonus. There’s also a $200 bonus for the highest finishing 305 sprint car in the 360 A-main.

A driver has to compete in a different car in each class to be eligible.

“First and foremost I want to thank Kenny Clark and the employees at the Fremont Fence Company. We nearly pulled the plug on this event because the weather has put us so far behind on making improvements to the fencing in turns three and four. Fremont Fence came to the rescue. Despite trying to play catch-up with their business because of the weather, they committed crews to work Saturday and Sunday to get fencing improvements made so we can race this event. We have also added a lot of new seats at the track and the pit bleachers have been moved to the back stretch,” Helms said.

“I want to thank everyone for all the hard work and encouragement as we work to make improvements at Waynesfield,” Helms added.

LEXINGTON, N.C. – Kaulig Racing will field three Chevrolets for the first time in team history during the upcoming NASCAR Xfinity Series event at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

The team has added Ross Chastain to its roster at Daytona, along with previously-announced driver AJ Allmendinger and full-time driver Justin Haley.

The team will race the No. 16 with Chastain behind the wheel, in addition to its No. 10 (Allmendinger) and No. 11 (Haley) Chevrolets at Daytona.

“Being able to bring a third car to Daytona and have our part-time driver Ross Chastain behind the wheel only increases our chances of getting the win,” team owner Matt Kaulig said. “Not by the addition of a car, but by the additional teammate our two drivers Justin Haley and AJ Allmendinger will have – Daytona is all about teamwork.”

To date, the team has led 57 laps at the World Center of Racing, with an average start of 8.1 and best finish of seventh (Feb. 2018). Earlier this year, Haley took the first stage win of the season at Daytona, with teammate Chastain winning the second stage.

“The success this team has had at resistor-plate tracks this season hasn’t gone unnoticed,” team president Chris Rice commented. “To have two stage wins and five top-five stage finishes in just two races shows the strength Kaulig Racing has.”

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship driver Parker Chase has welcomed country recording and touring artists Randy Rogers and the Randy Rogers Band as his newest partners with Starworks Motorsport.

The band celebrates its 19th anniversary this year and joins Chase to promote its eighth studio album, Hellbent.

Rogers, who also hails from New Braunfels, has been a close friend of the Chase family for many years, performing concerts at the historic Saengerhalle — a dance hall owned by the family in the early 2000s, long before he and the band reached the nationwide audience they have today.

“I’ve known Parker Chase almost his entire life. I watched him go from crawl to walk to run to race. And he was hellbent on making it to the next level the whole way,” said Rogers. “Partnering with him on promoting our new album just makes sense. We both know a thing or two about Hellbent!”

“I am so excited to partner with the Randy Rogers Band,” added Chase. “Growing up in Texas, I’ve been a huge fan for as long as I can remember. To get to be part of promoting his newest album, Hellbent — and single ‘Crazy People’ — is an honor, and a title quite fitting for our team.”

Randy Rogers Band will be a part of Chase’s racing program for the remainder of his season, starting with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen this weekend at Watkins Glen International Raceway. Chase will race the No. 8 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo in the six hour endurance racing event with Starworks Motorsport co-drivers Ryan Dalziel and Mike Skeen.

Music from Randy Rogers Band can be heard all weekend at the Starworks Motorsport garage in the IMSA paddock, while the team prepares the car for each day of on track activity. Chase and the team will also be giving away band related merchandise throughout the course of the weekend, both in person and on social media.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen is a crown jewel of endurance racing.

With a history dating back to the late 1960s and a list of winners that includes some of the greatest road racers of all time, the annual six-hour battle on the 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit is a bona fide big one.

On Sunday, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns for another six-hour battle at The Glen, beginning at 9:45 a.m. ET. The race, which also marks the third round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, will be televised on NBCSN beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

The list of previous Six Hours of The Glen winners reads like a motorsports “Who’s Who.”

Legendary names in road racing like Jacky Ickx, Mario Andretti, Brian Redman, Jo Siffert, Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood were among the winners in the first decade of the event.

The late ‘70s and early 1980s saw more legendary names – like Hans-Joachim Stuck, Rick Mears, Johnny Rutherford, Derek Bell and Al Holbert – added to the Six Hours of The Glen’s winners list.

Beginning in September 1984 and running through the mid-‘90s, the race length changed to 500 kilometers, but still more legendary names – like Geoff Brabham, Chip Robinson and Juan Manuel Fangio II – were winners at The Glen.

The Six Hours returned in 1996 and, aside from 1998, has been run every year since.

Over the past 20 years, even more legends – like Scott Pruett, Bill Auberlen, Andy Lally, Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa – have pulled into victory lane after six grueling hours.

“Watkins Glen is, hands down, my favorite racetrack on the planet,” said Lally, a four-time Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen winner who will share the No. 44 Magnus Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 with John Potter and Spencer Pumpelly in the GT Daytona class on Sunday. “For me, it’s my home state. It’s where I grew up, not too far, and it is a special place for me, not only for endurance racing, but for NASCAR racing.

“I’ve raced prototypes and GT cars there, I’ve races open-wheel formula cars there and I’ve raced stock cars there. And every time, it’s always a battle. On the short course or the long course, for me, it just doesn’t get any better than Watkins Glen.”

To Lally’s point, the Watkins Glen Int’l circuit is another key contributor to the event’s prestige. Between 1948 and 1952, racing in Watkins Glen was done on a 6.6-mile course, utilizing streets and roads in and around the small village in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York.

The permanent road course began at its current location in 1956, and Watkins Glen hosted Formula 1 Grand Prix races for 20 years beginning in 1961.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series has raced on the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen “short course” every year since 1986, and IndyCar also has raced there several times, which all adds to the mystique of “The Glen.”

“I think Watkins Glen is an amazing track,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, who heads into Sunday’s race riding a two-race WeatherTech Championship winning streak in the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi with co-driver Dane Cameron. “It’s a really fast, flowing track and it really suits our cars.

“It’s tough. It’s one of the hardest races of endurance racing, because there’s so many fast corners. Physically, it’s very demanding and it makes it fun. It’s a place where you can push so hard.”

It’s also a place where Montoya has raced not only in the Acura DPi, but also in IndyCar and NASCAR, making him uniquely qualified to compare the experiences at The Glen.

“This (Acura DPi) is very close to the IndyCar,” Montoya said. “It’s actually shockingly close, how fast you can go, compared with the IndyCar. It’ll be interesting to see how much closer we get this year with the Michelins this year and the extra power. It should be at least two seconds a lap quicker than the last time we were there, so I don’t know.

“It’s going to make it a really, really brave place.”

By his own admission, Billy Venturini didn’t suddenly decide to turn Venturini Motorsports into a developmental team.

The team, once a small family-run organization started by two-time ARCA champion Bill Venturini, has become a multi-car powerhouse in the ARCA Menards Series. Since 2008, Venturini Motorsports, under the direction of Billy Venturini, has won 41 ARCA Menards Series races with a who’s who of star drivers.

Reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano, 2017 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series champion Christopher Bell and 2015 NASCAR Gander Truck Series champion Erik Jones are three of the dozens of drivers to take a turn behind the wheel of Venturini-prepared race cars during the last 11 years.

So what led to Venturini Motorsports becoming a developmental powerhouse?

Necessity.

“It was forced upon. It was a financial situation. We didn’t go from me driving to being like, ‘We’re going to be a driver development team.’ It went from we’re going to drive to, OK, I need to make a living,” 43-year-old Billy Venturini said.

The transition from family team to driver development team began in 2007 when Venturini inked a deal to put part-time racer Tom Berte in one of the team’s cars for a few races. The deal served as a way to pay the bills during a time when money was scarce.

“It was not a big-money deal at all, but it was enough,” said Venturini, who stressed that he was only a few months away at the time from having to find a job to pay his own bills. “It was enough of a deal … the only thing it did was it bought me time.”

Later in the same year, Venturini inked a deal to put Joe Gibbs Racing developmental driver Marc Davis in Venturini equipment at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway. The pairing worked and the result was a fourth-place finish.

That was the start of a beautiful relationship between Venturini Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.

“J.D. Gibbs and I raced Legend Cars together, so we were buddies,” Venturini recalled. “We take Marc and we run him and we run another kid, not through Gibbs, so we run these two kids, younger kids and they’re both decent little race car drivers.

“First chance we get with Marc we run fourth at Toledo in 2007. That right there, it wasn’t a big sample size, but just the couple times we had decent drivers we did really well.”

It wasn’t long before J.D. Gibbs came calling again, but this time the stakes were higher. He wanted Venturini Motorsports to field a car for rising star Joey Logano in the Carolina 500 ARCA Menards Series race at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway.

“J.D. said, ‘What do you gotta do to be better?’ I told him, ‘We just need an opportunity, we can do this,’”

Venturini said. “I don’t know why he believed me, probably shouldn’t have, but he did. He gave me the opportunity to go to Rockingham in 2008.”

One could say May 4, 2008, was the day Venturini Motorsports became a developmental team. That was the day Logano, driving the team’s familiar No. 25 Chevrolet, annihilated the ARCA Menards Series field at Rockingham Speedway.

Logano’s lightning-fast qualifying lap at 146.645 mph was an indication of things to come in the race.

“We sat on the pole for the race, led 257 out of 312 laps and at one point lapped the entire field,” Venturini said. “We didn’t beat them, we kicked their asses. And we kicked the asses of some really good race teams down there. I knew when we went down there, I knew this was my moment. If I was going to make this deal work, I had to capitalize on it. We have to win. In my mind, there was no other choice than to win that race.”

Venturini Motorsports didn’t just capitalize, the team took the opportunity and drove it straight to the bank.

“That one day changed everything. It changed it all. Joey was perfect. We called the perfect race. The pit stops were perfect. Every star aligned,” Venturini said. “In one day, we went from family team trying to do this to … I think the style in which we won validated us immediately. We were on the map.”