The writer's article on the baseball post-season in the United States -- and particularly his criticism of cricket and unorthodox view of  English Premiership geography -- prompted a torrent of complaints from football fans in the UK. Here, he reassesses his thoughts...

OK Donna, in response to your valid criticism of my biased (I couldn’t resist) reference to the number of London teams in the Premiership, I have taken it upon myself to find out where the teams in the Premiership are from. The official count from London: six -- Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea, plus Charlton Athletic, Fulham and West Ham United.

Wigan are from Greater Manchester (in addition to Manchester City and Manchester United, making nine out of the 20 Premiership teams (or 45%) representing two municipalities in England. Then I discovered that Liverpool (which is not a part of London, a surprise to approximately half the civilised world conservatively) actually has two teams, putting us over the halfway line, so that 11 of the 20 Premiership teams (or 55%) are from four municipalities.

This leaves us with Watford, from Hertfordshire (never heard of it), the city of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, apparently in the south of the region where they make that delicious but overly-rich pudding, and also where James Herriot spayed the majority of his dogs); Reading (never heard of the place) in Berkshire (sounds familiar from somewhere), the south-coast port city of Portsmouth (are there any cliffs there that they wrote poems about?), Newcastle upon Tyne (no idea where that is, though to the team’s inestimable credit one of soccer’s all-time bandits Faustino Asprilla once graced the uniform), Middlesbrough, north-east England (I am assuming towards the middle); then we have Bolton, where the little guy scored his first goal, near a place called Horwich (any interesting facts anyone has about Horwich?).

Then there is Blackburn, from Lancashire, the land of the thousand holes (or was it four thousand?).  And let's not forget Aston Villa in Birmingham, West Midlands. (Didn’t Birmingham used to have another team or two in the Premiership?)

Other significant and interesting facts I learned:

Apparently your beloved football was born in your country as an afterthought: a means of training between cricket seasons. Does this mean cricket is the real national sport of England? 

Thee are only six London teams in the Premiership not 20, my apologies. Are you all aware that the rest of the world has no idea where the majority of these places are? I’m sure you have all heard of each city that the baseball teams come from.

Batter up! Who’s next?!