A UK campsite with a large children’s play park and an adult-only area has been named the best in the UK.
St Helens in the Park in North Yorkshire has been named the best campsite of the year by the AA Caravan & Camping Awards.
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St Helens in The Park has been named the best campsite by AACredit: TripadvisorThe park has a range of pitches, including ones with electrical supplyCredit: Tripadvisor
The cafe also runs themed nights, such as burger nights, curry nights and pizza nights, made fresh in the on-site pizza oven.
The campsite has a Store Cupboard shop as well, to top up on supplies such as milk and bread.
If you want to leave the campsite and explore a bit more, then there are a number of pubs and restaurants not too far away.
For example, the Walkers Fish Restaurant and Ye Olde Forge Valley Inn are both just a five minute drive away.
The campsite is located on Dawnay Estate, which sprawls across 7,500 acres and features numerous country walks.
On some walks, visitors may even spot some alpacas or donkeys.
For those who don’t like camping, there are a few pods as wellCredit: Tripadvisor
Visitors can also take a wander to The North Yorkshire Water Park with a zip line, climbing wall, kayaking, pedalos, Park Runs and open water swimming.
The water park is also home to AquaPark – an inflatable obstacle course that sits on the water, ideal for summer days.
For somewhere further afield to explore, Scarborough is only eight miles away, and there is a bus that goes straight from outside the caravan park.
St Helens in the Park was inspected for quality and commitment to customer satisfaction by AA expert inspectors.
Simon Numphud, managing director at AA Media, said: “British caravan and camping has never been more inspiring with parks across the country offering something truly special, from peaceful rural escapes to unforgettable coastal views.
“This year’s winners highlight the incredible variety and quality of outdoor stays in the UK, where passion, creativity and care combine to give holidaymakers experiences they’ll treasure. Congratulations to all the winners and their teams.”
From the hot tub in the Dodger Stadium clubhouse, Yoshinobu Yamamoto saw his interpreter on his way to take a shower.
Yamamoto called out to him.
“What are those colors?” Yamamoto asked him.
Yoshihiro Sonoda, 48, wore only a pair of boxers that depicted a rabbit with rainbow-colored lasers shooting out of its eyes.
Sonoda explained bashfully, “These are my shobu pantsu.”
For more than a year, Sonoda had worn shobu pantsu — or game underwear — for each one of Yamamoto’s starts.
Sonoda chuckled as he recalled the incident. Several weeks have passed since then, and the superstitious interpreter still wears his lucky boxers on days Yamamoto pitches.
When Yamamoto takes the mound for the Dodgers against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday in Game 2 of the World Series, beneath Sonoda’s team-issued sweatpants will be the rabbit and rainbow-colored lasers.
The kid is a little different.
Sonoda recalled thinking that last year on the first day of spring training. On a grass field near the players’ parking lot, he watched Yamamoto throw javelins as part of his workout routine.
When the Japanese right-hander was finished, Sonoda started collecting the projectiles.
Yamamoto stopped him.
“Please, you’re my interpreter,” he said. “You’re not my servant.”
Yamamoto picked up his javelins and carried them back to the clubhouse.
In the months that followed, Sonoda noticed how Yamamoto treated others. He wasn’t kind only to other players. He was also conscientious of the organization’s rank-and-file employees.
“He pretends he’s not watching, but he’s watching,” Sonoda said. “He seems like he’s not listening, but he’s listening.”
Every day the Dodgers are on the road, Yamamoto has Starbucks coffee delivered to the team hotel. He always orders something for Sonoda.
“I think Yamamoto is quite the gentleman, quite the high character,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He treats everyone from Hiro to myself to all the support staff with the highest of respect.”
Two days into the job as Yamamoto’s interpreter, Sonoda wanted to resign.
A former collegiate judo standout in Japan, Sonoda spent the previous two decades working in the entertainment industry as a lighting engineer, his credits including “Men in Black,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Succession” and “Nurse Jackie.”
He had no previous experience as an interpreter and was by no means a baseball expert. He was apart from his wife, who remained in her native Texas.
“I don’t want to quit, but I can’t do this,” Sonoda told traveling secretary Scott Akasaki.
Akasaki, who was once an interpreter for Hideo Nomo, asked Sonoda to reconsider.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, left, speaks to reporters with his interpreter, Yoshihiro Sonoda, in a press conference before Game 1 of the 2024 NLDS against the San Diego Padres.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
“You can learn about baseball if you study it,” Sonoda recalled being told by Akasaki. “But Yoshinobu chose you for a reason, and that’s something no other person has.”
Sonoda never shared his insecurities with Yamamoto, instead throwing himself head first into his work. He was taught how to interpret ball-tracking data by assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness and performance science manager Tyler Duncan. He consulted with veteran interpreters, including Shingo Horie of the San Diego Padres and Hiro Fujiwara of the New York Mets.
Last year at World Series media day, Yamamoto was asked about Sonoda.
“We were both rookies this year,” Yamamoto said. “Sonoda-san especially, he came from a different industry and I would think he endured a lot of hardship. But he didn’t let on about that being the case.”
Standing by Yamamoto’s side, Sonoda fought back tears.
Sonoda has a small notebook in which he tracks every pitch thrown by Yamamoto. In a night game in Baltimore last month, Sonoda took notes as usual, jotting down pitches types and their locations.
Yamamoto carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning.
When there were two outs, Sonoda had Shohei Ohtani on one side of him and trainer Yosuke Nakajima on the other.
Sonoda stopped taking notes.
“I thought I should prepare to celebrate,” he said.
Jackson Holliday homered, and the no-hitter was gone.
Sonoda blamed himself.
“If only I had taken notes on that at-bat …” he said.
Sonoda was a significantly better interpreter this season than he was last season. On his commutes to Dodger Stadium, he listens to audio of Horie interpreting for Yu Darvish or Fujiwara for Kodai Senga.
Yamamoto noticed.
“His efforts in the shadows have been to where I can feel them,” Yamamoto said. “He’s a very pure and straightforward person. I think he’s really wonderful.”
Last year, Sonoda received a set of national-park-themed underwear from his wife, who knew of his affinity for the outdoors. The Yellowstone Park pair featured a roaring bear, which reminded Sonoda of Yamamoto screaming on the mound. Sonoda started wearing the boxers on days Yamamoto pitched, switching to a different pair for the next start if he lost or didn’t pitch well.
A new season called for a new set of underwear, but a stretch of inadequate run support prompted Sonoda to unretire a pair he wore on the Dodgers’ World Series run last year, the ones with the rainbow-emitting rabbit.
“I’m very superstitious,” Sonoda said.
Sonoda is also grateful.
“I think there are 14 or 15 Japanese interpreters in the majors leagues,” he said. “I feel like I’m the most blessed.”
Blessed because Akasaki talked him out of resigning. Blessed because of the baseball education he received from McGuiness and Duncan. Blessed because he has mentors such as Horie and Fujiwara. And above all, blessed because he was paired with a player whom he considers as good a person as he is a pitcher, the kind of high-character individual for whom he would wear radiant underwear in the off chance it could improve his fortune.
From Jack Harris: Ever since resuming two-way duties earlier this year, Shohei Ohtani had been throwing the ball well.
It wasn’t until Wednesday, however, that he finally pitched like a frontline starter, too.
Coming off his second career Tommy John surgery this year, Ohtani immediately lit up the radar gun with 100-mph fastballs and amassed gaudy strikeout totals with a devastating sweeper. In his first eight pitching starts of the season, he gave up just five runs in 16 innings for a 2.37 ERA, racked up 25 punchouts against just five walks, and looked every bit of the hard-throwing ace he was before spending a year-and-a-half rehabbing his right elbow and only serving as a designated hitter.
But, during that time, Ohtani was also throwing in only short bursts, as part of a deliberate effort to slowly build him up. He tossed one inning in his first two starts. Two innings, then three, then four, in each pair of outings after that. Rarely did he face a lineup two times through. At no point did he see the same batter three times in the same game.
“I think we’re still in the [process of] finding out who he is, what he is, getting his bearings for him,” manager Dave Roberts acknowledged ahead of Wednesday’s game.
“But,” the skipper added, “I’m expecting him to get through five [tonight], pitch well and just continue to get better.”
In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds, Ohtani was indeed better.
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ANGELS
Adolis García, Joc Pederson and Kyle Higashioka each hit a three-run homer, Corey Seager went deep a team-leading 21st time and the Texas Rangers blew out the Angels20-3 on Wednesday night.
García’s 17th home run highlighted a four-run first inning, Pederson made it 7-1 in the second with his seventh of the season and Seager added a two-run shot in the fourth.
Higashioka’s 10th homer for a 20-3 lead came on the last of 21 pitches — all between 30 and 40 mph — from Oswald Peraza, who moved to the mound from first base in the seventh and allowed eight runs while getting one out.
From Ryan Kartje: Following public uproar over the potential end of their 100-year old football rivalry, USC has made an amended offer to Notre Dame that would extend their annual series for multiple years beyond this season, USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen told The Times.
Negotiations remain ongoing between the two schools, but Cohen said she is “really hopeful” that USC’s new offer, which better accommodates Notre Dame’s preference for a long-term deal, would lead to an agreement “very soon.”
“We’re trying to extend the series,” Cohen said. “This is an important series for us and for our fans and for our program, and hopefully we get to a resolution that supports that and is in the best interest of our program.”
From Kevin Baxter: The Galaxy, stumbling through the worst season in the franchise’s long history, has looked to the Leagues Cup, a tournament with little pedigree and no real history, to salvage the year.
And for much of the monthlong competition that worked, with the Galaxy cruising into the tournament semifinals unbeaten. But reality and the Seattle Sounders caught up with them Wednesday, when goals from Pedro de la Vega and Osaze De Rosario gave Seattle a 2-0 victory and a spot in Sunday’s Leagues Cup final against Lionel Messi and Inter Miami.
The Galaxy will play host to Orlando City, a 3-1 loser in the other semifinal, in Sunday’s third-place game, where a berth in next season’s CONCACAF Champions Cup will be on the line.
1886 — Richard Sears beats R. Livingston Beeckman 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 to win his sixth straight U.S. national tennis championship.
1888 — Henry Slocum defeats Howard Taylor 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 to win the eighth U.S. men’s national tennis championship. Slocum, last year’s runner-up, is the first men’s champion other than Richard Sears. Sears, the U.S. champion from 1881-1887, retired last year.
1908 — Fred McLeod wins the U.S. Open golf title with a one-stroke victory over Willie Smith in a playoff.
1922 — The oldest American international team golf match, the Walker Cup, is established with the U.S. beating Britain 8-4.
1949 — The U.S. takes the Davis Cup, topping Australia 4-1.
1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first Black player to compete in the U.S. Open. Gibson wins her first round match, defeating Barbara Knapp of Britain 6-2, 6-2 at Forest Hills in New York.
1977 — The Cosmos beat the Seattle Sounders 2-1 at Portland, Ore., to win their second NASL title. Giorgio Chinaglia’s header in the 77th minute is the winning goal.
1989 — Pete Sampras, 18, wins his first U.S. Open singles match in four sets over Agustin Moreno of Mexico.
1990 — Stefan Edberg becomes the first top-seeded player since John Newcombe in 1971 to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open. Edberg loses to Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2.
1994 — Tiger Woods, 18, becomes the youngest winner in the history of the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, capturing the last three holes of his 36-hole title match against Trip Kuehne.
1995 — Monica Seles, plays in her first Grand Slam tournament in more than 2 1-2 years and beats Ruxandra Dragomir 6-3, 6-1 in first round of the U.S. Open.
2004 — The U.S. women’s basketball team goes through the Athens Olympics undefeated to win its 5th Olympic gold medal, beating Australia 74-63 in the final.
2004 — Led by San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginóbili, Argentina beats Italy 84-69 for the Olympic basketball gold medal in Athens; star-studded U.S. team takes bronze.
2008 — Top-seeded Ana Ivanovic is ousted from the U.S. Open, beaten by 188th-ranked Julie Coin 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second round. Never before in the Open era that began in 1968 had the No. 1 woman lost this early in the tournament.
2014 — Acknowledging he “didn’t get it right” with a two-game suspension for Ravens running back Ray Rice, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announces tougher penalties for players accused of domestic violence, including six weeks for a first offense and at least a year for a second.
2022 — Tour Championship, Men’s Golf, East Lake GC: Irishman Rory McIlroy wins $18 million with one-stroke win over Scottie Scheffler and Im Sung-jae; becomes first three-time winner of the FedEx Cup.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1918 — Tris Speaker was suspended for the rest of the season because of his assault on umpire Tom Connolly after a dispute at home plate in Philadelphia.
1926 — Emil Levsen of the Cleveland Indians pitched two complete-game victories over the Boston Red Sox, 6-1 and 5-1. He did not strike out a batter in either game. The Indians used the identical lineup in both games.
1951 — The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Giants 2-0, snapping the Giants’ 16-game winning streak. The streak enabled the Giants to cut the Dodgers 13½-game lead to six.
1971 — In the nightcap of a doubleheader, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Rick Wise hit two home runs to help himself to a 7-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
1977 — Steve Garvey hit three doubles and two home runs in five at-bats, leading the Dodgers to an 11-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. One of Garvey’s homers was a grand slam.
1977 — In a 6-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, Nolan Ryan of the Angels struck out 11 batters to pass the 300-strikeout plateau for the fifth time in his career.
1987 — Mike Schmidt passes Ted Williams and Willie McCovey with 522 home runs
1990 — Ryne Sandberg became the first second baseman in history to have consecutive 30-homer seasons, leading the Cubs to a 5-2 victory over the Houston Astros.
1992 — The Milwaukee Brewers set an American League record with 31 hits and 26 singles in a 22-2 rout of the Toronto Blue Jays.
1993 — Pinch-hitter Jeremy Hess’ bases-loaded single with two out in the sixth inning gives Long Beach, Calif. a 3-2 victory over Panama in the championship game of the Little League World Series.
2003 — Eric Gagne set a major league record with his 44th straight save this season as the Dodgers beat Houston 6-3. Gagne eclipsed Tom Gordon’s 1998 record of 43 in a row to begin a season.
2005 — Michael Memea’s home run in the bottom of the seventh gives West Oahu of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, the Little League World Series title.
2008 — Cristian Guzman of the Nationals became the second player to hit for the cycle since the franchise moved to Washington, driving in three in an 11-2 rout of the Dodgers.
2011 — The team from Huntington Beach, Calif., returns the Little League World Series title to the U.S. with a 2-1 victory over Hamamatsu City, Japan.
2014 — San Francisco’s Yusmeiro Petit set a major league record when he retired his 46th batter in a row, and the Giants beat Colorado 3-1. Petit got the first eight Colorado hitters, establishing the mark by striking out Charlie Culberson. That broke Mark Buehrle’s record of 45 straight with the Chicago White Sox in 2009. Petit’s streak covered eight games, six of them in relief.
2016 — Ryan Harlost led Endwell, N.Y., to the Little League World Series title, striking out eight and limiting South Korea to five hits in six innings in a 2-1 victory. Endwell gave New York its first championship since 1964.
2021 — Angels pitcher Shohei Otani becomes the first player in team history to reach 20 stolen bases and hit 40 home runs in a season.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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Ever since resuming two-way duties earlier this year, Shohei Ohtani had been throwing the ball well.
It wasn’t until Wednesday, however, that he finally pitched like a frontline starter, too.
Coming off his second career Tommy John surgery this year, Ohtani immediately lit up the radar gun with 100-mph fastballs and amassed gaudy strikeout totals with a devastating sweeper. In his first eight pitching starts of the season, he gave up just five runs in 16 innings for a 2.37 ERA, racked up 25 punchouts against just five walks, and looked every bit of the hard-throwing ace he was before spending a year-and-a-half rehabbing his right elbow and only serving as a designated hitter.
But, during that time, Ohtani was also throwing in only short bursts, as part of a deliberate effort to slowly build him up. He tossed one inning in his first two starts. Two innings, then three, then four, in each pair of outings after that. Rarely did he face a lineup two times through. At no point did he see the same batter three times in the same game.
He was, in effect, an opener.
And in that role, raw stuff was enough.
Recently, however, Ohtani had encountered a new challenge. Since getting the green light to make more typical five-inning starts, he had failed to actually complete the fifth in his first two attempts.
The struggles weren’t surprising, with five of the nine runs Ohtani had given up in his previous two outings coming in either the fourth or fifth innings. For all of Ohtani’s talent, it was clear there was tactical rust that still needed to be cleared.
“I think we’re still in the [process of] finding out who he is, what he is, getting his bearings for him,” manager Dave Roberts acknowledged ahead of Wednesday’s game.
“But,” the skipper added, “I’m expecting him to get through five [tonight], pitch well and just continue to get better.”
In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds, Ohtani was indeed better.
Both in his results, and his process for getting there.
The right-hander not only got through five full innings of one-run ball in an 87-pitch outing — but did so by adopting a new, more unpredictable plan of attack.
Instead of leaning predominantly on fastballs and sweepers as he did earlier this year, Ohtani threw the kitchen sink at the Reds; using his curveball a career-high 23 times and his splitter a season-high 11 times, and all seven of his wicked offerings on at least seven different occasions.
Along the way, Ohtani yielded only two hits (one of them a solo home run from Noelvi Marte in the third), recorded nine strikeouts (his most in a game in more than two years) and, for the first time this year, showed the kind of ability to work deep into a game that could be pivotal in determining his October pitching role.
“Getting his sea legs back and getting going, it takes a while,” Roberts said. “So I thought tonight was one of those nights where he was locked in and worked some things out and really got into a good rhythm.”
Before Wednesday, there was still an open question over how the Dodgers might use Ohtani’s arm in the postseason.
Ideally, he could help headline their star-studded rotation, joining Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and maybe Clayton Kershaw to form the kind of deep starting pitching arsenal the Dodgers have sorely lacked in recent playoff treks.
But first, he had to show he was capable of navigating an opposing order multiple times.
“I do think that the last few starts, he was pretty predictable,” Roberts said. “And so he was smart enough to kind of suss that out, and get him off the scent.”
Against the Reds (68-66), Ohtani went to his secondary stuff early and often. His 12 curveballs in the first two innings alone were more than he had thrown in his 10 previous outings this year combined. His 34% fastball usage (including sinkers and cutters) was his lowest in a game in almost three years.
“As we’re progressing through this rehab in general, aside from the innings, I just really wanted to be able to incorporate other pitches,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “So that was really the intent going in.”
Ohtani’s command was still shaky, leading to a pair of second-inning walks that he only stranded after back-to-back strikeouts. With one out in the third, he made his lone mistake, leaving a first-pitch cutter to Marte down the middle for a home run that was clobbered to the left-field pavilion.
After that, however, Ohtani found a groove. He retired the final eight batters he faced. He finished his start by getting Cincinnati leadoff man TJ Friedl to ground out in their third meeting of the evening. And he concluded his performance with 14 swings-and-misses overall, the most whiffs he had generated in a game all year.
“He picked and chose when he used his fastball, and it just felt like they couldn’t really figure it out,” Kiké Hernández said. “They looked like they were guessing out there.”
“He’s got so many pitches,” added catcher Dalton Rushing, “and when you throw everything in the zone or around the zone, it just makes you that much better.”
By getting through five innings, Ohtani also qualified for his first pitching win of the season.
The Dodgers (77-57) made sure they didn’t squander it.
After starting the game with nine straight outs against Reds starter Nick Lodolo, the club finally broke the game open with a four-run rally in the fourth, when Ohtani led off with a single and Hernández and Rushing had two-run, bases-loaded singles. Michael Conforto added a solo insurance homer in the eighth. And the bullpen tiptoed in and out of trouble over four scoreless innings of game-sealing relief.
Collectively, the Dodgers set a nine-inning franchise record by combining for 19 strikeouts.
The victory helped the Dodgers grow their National League West lead to two games over the San Diego Padres, who dropped a series rubber match to the Seattle Mariners earlier in the day. It ran the team’s recent winning streak up to four games, its longest since the start of a 21-25 run dating back to July 4.
What was most important, though, was the way Ohtani looked, showing not only the life that remains in his surgically repaired elbow, but his ability to translate it into successful, dominant full-length outings.
“When you’re trying to go through a lineup three times, you’ve got to at times be able to go to different pitches and sequences,” Roberts added. “So, yeah, to continue to build him up and give us options, if we want to get a little bit more length out of him, is certainly helpful.”
Freeman, Call out
The Dodgers were without Freddie Freeman and Alex Call on Wednesday, but are hoping both will be available for their next game on Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Freeman was absent from the lineup because of a “stinger” in his neck and right shoulder, Roberts said. Freeman has dealt with similar issues before, and Roberts said they wanted to give him the opportunity for two consecutive days off (including Thursday’s off-day) to let it calm down.
Call was also out of the lineup after being removed from Tuesday’s game with a back flare-up. He, too, has dealt with similar issues in the past. Roberts described Call as “day-to-day” and said the team would re-evaluate his status Friday.
