Baseball

[El Zen]

Went to a game in California last time I was there, was an awesome day out but I didn't enjoy the actual game that much. Was really good to be there after watching things like it on the TV for the millionth time. Cant stand Hockey, Basketball or American football, but I could at least see why people liked going to baseball games.

For most of the continent, baseball is just that: a chance to go out with your buddies, get drunk on overpriced beer (though occasionally, if it's a game that they're not expecting a big crowd for, they'll promote it as a cheap beer night) and yell at the opposition (even though you may not even know more than one or two of their players).

It's the nation's pastime. Would love to go to a game one time, just for the eperience of doing eactly that. Now, I really like the game too, but the social aspect of it seems like something I'd enjoy immensly.

Jondaken; you say you can't stand hockey? Why oh why not? I think it's a fantastic game. So fast and full of adrenaline. Basketball I agree is as boring as a very boring thing. Gridiron is ok, though.

[El Zen]

One thing I will say however, these guys are not athletes, at least from what I could make out from it, they all had big fat asses and slouchy postures.

Another reason to love the game, surely? All sports where you can chew tobacco while playing is a wonderful thing in my book

[memoryof82]

But are him a Jeter gay? :-)

Sorry to go OT, but what is a Jeter gay, Rob?...

[leviramsey]

The World Baseball Classic is now underway, with Japan v. China... midway through the seventh inning, Japan leads 4-0. I believe ESPN America is showing the competition in the UK/Europe.

[kidlewis]

cricket is the only bat on ball sport worth watching IMO.

[usvilla]

try hitting a curve ball or a 96 mph fastball

[leviramsey]

It's a pity that the Manny Ramirez vs. a cricket bowler stunt didn't happen.

[leviramsey]

Cricket vs. baseball

Like many a cricket fan stuck in the US and bored to death of summer TV, I took to watching baseball more by default than out of any inherent fascination with the sport. (BTW, I've always held that cricket is the ultimate made-for-American-TV sport, with its built-in commercial breaks every 4 minutes. But that's a story for another day.) Over the years, however, I have come to appreciate -- prepare for sacrilege here -- some of baseball's advantages over cricket, despite being slower-paced, limited in tactics and lacking in strategy.

The key area where baseball wins is in suspense and drama and this can be traced to two elements of the game:

1. The At-Bat: Each at-bat, while often meaningless in the grand scheme of things, nevertheless builds tension through the balls-strikes sequence. Even if a hapless Adam Melhuse is facing Pedro Martinez down two strikes in a hopelessly lost ballgame, we still find ourselves filled with an insatiable curiosity to know what happens next. (It is as if every at-bat is a musical piece that keeps building tension until it ends in the "key" of an out or a hit.)

2. The Inning: Baseball's other big advantage is its use of innings to lend weight to many at-bats. With the prospect of stranding men on base at the end of an inning, at-bats suddenly become more crucial and weighty. (And if you are an A's fan, agonizing.) Moreover, we get to monitor the progress of both teams on an inning-by-inning basis making it easy to figure out, at all times, which team is ahead in the race.

In contrast, one-day cricket suffers from the fact that the first inning is bereft of competitive suspense, since we often have no clue as to which team is doing better. While one might argue that this is exactly what makes the game strategically complex, it also serves to lower the interest of the casual spectator, especially when the other spectator attraction -- superlative displays of batting prowess -- also comes a cropper in the middle overs. Come to think of it, watching the first inning of a cricket match is not too different from watching the opening moves of a chess game; it's all very interesting if you can follow what's going on, but it may be none too exciting otherwise.

[leviramsey]

Japan closes the game out to win 4-0. Japan will next play the winner of tomorrow's South Korea-Chinese Taipei game, while China will play the loser in an elimination game.

[Jondaken]

cricket is the only bat on ball sport worth watching IMO.

No.

[kurtsimonw]

cricket is the only bat on ball sport worth watching IMO.

I'm English.. and I can't stand it. Cricket should be banned for putting people through days and days of boredom.

[kidlewis]

try hitting a curve ball or a 96 mph fastball

try hooking a 70mph cricket ball out the ground off your nose.... I have.

[kidlewis]

cricket is the only bat on ball sport worth watching IMO.

I'm English.. and I can't stand it. Cricket should be banned for putting people through days and days of boredom.

you have never seen or played a village cricket game have you?

it's the best level of cricket in the world.

[kurtsimonw]

Village cricket? I presumed all cricket was the same!

[leviramsey]

It's very easy to find comparisons of, say, either flavor of rugby with gridiron that have been written by someone who's reasonably knowledgeable about both sports. But it's very difficult to find something similar comparing cricket and baseball.

A google for "cricket vs. baseball" gets the blog that I posted, a few lists of comparison (that are probably close to useless for getting any understanding of one sport from another... even the wiki on the subject doesn't leave me with much of an understanding of cricket), and a number of articles that are basically hatchet jobs by someone who only has a grounding in one of them (normally cricket... by and large baseball fans couldn't give enough of a toss about cricket to do a hatchet job).

[leviramsey]

When professional cricketers challenge amateur baseballers, hilarity ensues

"I have seen the game played before," the elderly steward muttered from the side of his mouth, "by American servicemen stationed here in the war. They all chewed gum while they spoke so we couldn't understand a word they said."

In front of us a diamond has been marked out on the turf, a pitcher's mound has been set down at mid-on, and netting has been strung up in front of the pavilion. Marcus Trescothick stands over the home plate swinging his Louisville Slugger and, from beneath the tugged-down peak of his cap, eyes the hit over right field to St James' graveyard.

Trescothick is the man responsible for the temporary transformation of Taunton County Ground into a ballpark. It is his benefit year, and, eschewing the more typical golf days and dinner evenings at the Rotary Club, he has decided to challenge the Great Britain baseball team to a game.

His squad, Banger's All Stars, is composed entirely of professional cricketers. Geraint Jones is leading off the batting, and Charl Willoughby and Ashley Giles are sharing the pitching duties. Those three and Trescothick have 166 Test caps between them. The rest of the Banger's line up has been drawn from the Somerset squad.

The Great Britain baseball team are a largely amateur bunch, part-timers with a point to prove. That said, they finished second at the 2007 European Championships, inspired to unprecedented success by their Minor League star Brant Ust.

It's a pub-table conversation brought to life. An animated hypothetical. Would Trescothick's hand-eye co-ordination make him a natural slugger? Could Giles' ability to spin a cricket ball translate into a mean curve? Might Jones make a sharp shortstop? And would the superior athleticism and ball skills of the professionals outweigh the knowledge and understanding of the amateurs?

The answer was an emphatic 'no'. This became sharply apparent when Giles took to the mound in the third inning and gave up 10 runs in 13 at-bats, a hammering easily equivalent to a bowler going for 36 in a single over. He was even on the receiving end of a grand-slam, Ian Young smashing a homer into the Old Pavilion with the bases loaded. It earned him some merciless ribbing from Jonny Gould, the Channel Five sports factotum doing sterling work on the tannoy.

Actually Giles was invariably ahead of the count, as the batters were bemused by the sheer slowness of his pitches. Surprisingly, the pitching was the part of the game the cricketers were best at. Willoughby, a gangling southpaw with an arm like a whip, did better. It wasn't the odd ball that he pitched in the dirt that unsettled the batters so much as the more frequent ones winged in at their heads. He managed two strike-outs for a single unearned run in his sole inning.

Unearned, for those as unfamiliar with the lingo as myself, means it came from a fielding error. I got to know this quickly because the single worst thing about the cricketers' game was their fielding. Bizarre this, as you'd expect they would instinctively excel. Some of their mistakes were the product of habit: Neil Edwards amusingly failed to grasp the rather crucial point that, when you take a catch in baseball, you don't stand there throwing the ball in the air and cheering while the offense are still sprinting towards home plate.

More baffling was the standard of their catching, which was worse than woeful. Alan Smith, the general manager of UK Baseball, pointed out that catching in a mitt requires the fielder to take the ball in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. The cricketer's instinct is to align the fingers with the ball, not the spaces between them. Pretty much every single run of the 21 Great Britain took off the Banger's involved a fielding error of one kind or another.

The sharpest point of comparison was the batting. A baseball swing is more natural than that of a cricket bat, but also far harder to execute well. The best batters hit .300. For a cricketer that equates to scoring a single run three times in every 10 innings. Good hitters fail seven times out of every 10 at-bats. And there isn't a single cricket ground in the world with a boundary as long as that at the average ball park, where a home run needs to travel around 450 feet.

The power needed to hit that far comes from pivoting the hips. It's more akin to a golf swing than a cricket shot, where opening the hips means you'll play across the ball. The more elegant Somerset batsmen found the transition the hardest. James Hildreth simply couldn't curb his desire to cover-drive, and Arul Suppiah played a string of lovely back-foot defensives with a vertical bat. Both players have plum cricket techniques, and so couldn't help but swing just with their arms rather then use their legs.

Trescothick, who has always had more rustic inclinations, clobbered his first two pitches out of the ground, but as both were over backward point they were outside the foul lines and didn't count. All the same he went "three for three", reaching first base every time he was at bat.

"The hardest thing," he told me as loitered by the bull pen, "is judging the pitch. There are so many different things these guys can do with the ball: they can swing it, dip it. It's tough to judge which one to hit." Embarrassingly, the cricketers mustered only one run, and that was thanks to Geraint Jones' speed across the turf, as he stole second base and then hotfooted it home when Hildreth sent a straight drive down the middle.

The Banger's standout player by far was the young Somerset keeper Craig Kieswetter, one of those irritatingly gifted men who can probably pop a drop-goal over from the halfway line and run 100 yards in under 11 seconds. No surprise then that he orchestrated a double-play and pitched three fiery innings.

The GB head coach, Stephan Rapaglia, singled Kieswetter out. "He really impressed," he said. "He has the combination of tools that would make him a prospect if he were a couple of years younger: he runs well, has good footwork, good hands, a good arm. He actually has a swing at the plate.

"A couple of these guys, were they a little younger and spent a paltry amount of time really learning the game, would be strong candidates for the GB team." Even so, it was 21-1 to the ballplayers. So much for the pub-table debate. And so much for the glorified rounders theory.

[leviramsey]

Reading this thread from the beginning, and page three has a couple of punches to the gut for this Villan after the past couple of weeks

Whatever happens in tonight’s U.S. opener, can the Red Sox promise Jose something? Don’t blame anything on jet lag.

Blaming failures on jet lag is a handy excuse, but a poor one. “I have cancer”—that’s an excuse. “I was struck by lighting”—that’s an excuse. But “I didn’t do well because I have jet lag, because I’m a little sleepy”—that’s no excuse at all.

If Jose couldn’t perform when he is sleepy, every single KEYS would look like this

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.

1. F*ck Jose is tired!!!!!!

2. 2weriwe#$%SDFVJ

3. Seriously, f*ck you guys.

I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.

And yet people persist in using jet lag as an excuse. Jose had a boss once who blamed jet lag for absentmindedness after flying to Boston from Miami. She might has well have said, “I just drove up from Weymouth, so I’m really jet lagged.” Just about the only time when jet lag is a legitimate excuse is when one is returning from Newfoundland, with that weird half hour time zone. And then it’s not because one is tired, but because the idea of changing by only half an hour is a total mindf*ck. (Note: In fairness, confusion over crossing the International Date Line is also a good excuse. You move an hour forward, then another hour forward, then suddenly you’re 24 hours in the past? Can you imagine Manny trying to figure that one out?)

The fact of the matter is that in this day and age, where jet lag can be easily remedied through a combination of alcohol and the abuse of prescription drugs, no one should complain about it ever.

It's one of the few sports that's not over until it's over - I mean in footy, if a team has a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go, more often than not the game is effectively over.

[yakulto]

It's one of the few sports that's not over until it's over - I mean in footy, if a team has a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go, more often than not the game is effectively over.

Shit, it was me that wrote that! Kinda spooky given the events of last Sunday. It's still true 99% of the time though, and just highlights just how bad Villa screwed up.......

On the Subject of the WBC, went to Tokyo Dome last night to watch Japan vs China. China are certainly improved since 2006, but given the talent on the Japan team it was a pretty laboured performance all in all.

WBC fever has certainly gripped Japan though, Tokyo Dome was absolutely rammed, and the camera flashes and noise around the stadium everytime Ichiro came to bat (in particular the first time he ran out into rightfield) was staggering. He is a GOD over here.

Hopefully Japan will improve as the tournemant goes on, as they did in 2006. But I've the feeling a lot of the other nations are much stronger than in 2006, and thus Japan are going to have their work cut out to retain the title.

I'm off to the Big Egg tonight as well for Korea vs Taiwan. I've got tickets for all 6 games of the Asian round, good ones too.

It sure is good to have Baseball back again. A nice distraction from the stress that is engulfing me over the Villa at the mo!

[usvilla]

try hitting a curve ball or a 96 mph fastball

try hooking a 70mph cricket ball out the ground off your nose.... I have.

so have i !! - im english !

i played cricket for years - at a pretty decent level

i just cant understand peoples closed minds

its not english so i dont like it !!

try it or try to understand it - i did & i like it

thats all im saying

[B-dub]

I quite like Baseball actually - one of the better US sports. Ice Hockey you can never see the puck and American Football goes on for five hours with five minutes of actual play.

That's not much of an exaggeration. I heard of a US college student who, using a stop-watch, calculated that during a typical US football game (which runs between 3 and 3 1/2 hours) there is only about 8 minutes of actual play, as in from whistle to whistle, when the players are actually in motion.