Why Cricket is better than baseball

[thecastigador]

I really don't care to get in an argument about this, but you all do know that baseball is incredibly popular in all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Japan, and parts of S. America, right? It's hardly just an American sport.

[Kerry Dixon's Boots]

I really don't care to get in an argument about this, but you all do know that baseball is incredibly popular in all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean (i.e. Latin America, Japan, and parts of S. America, right? It's hardly just an American sport.

FYP

[BridgeMonkee]

I really don't care to get in an argument about this, but you all do know that baseball is incredibly popular in all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Japan, and parts of S. America, right? It's hardly just an American sport.



<o></o>I began asking around. Some fans noted that <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Toronto</st1></st1:city> has a team. Others mentioned the ever-increasing influx of non-American players on Major League Baseball rosters.
Yet the Toronto Blue Jays do not really represent <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1>Canada</st1></st1:country-region>, and those international players aren't playing for their native countries when they put on the jerseys of the Baltimore Orioles or the Kansas City Royals or the San Francisco Giants. At the end of the day, when the American League champion takes on the National League champion in the fall, there is little "worldly" about it. It's just an all-American ball game.

[Rowdies4ever]

I really don't care to get in an argument about this, but you all do know that baseball is incredibly popular in all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Japan, and parts of S. America, right? It's hardly just an American sport.It's not that popular in Central America: Nicaragua is about it. Everywhere else in Central America, soccer is king. It's not that popular in the Caribbean, apart from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Everywhere else in the Caribbean, cricket and/or soccer is king. It's not that popular in South America, except for Venezuela, and soccer is rapidly gaining on baseball there. Soccer is also gaining on baseball in Japan. On the other hand baseball does have strong amateur presence in countries where you would not expect it to be: Australia, Netherlands, etc.

Cricket is popular all over the former British Empire, which is a huge area - if India, Pakistan, Australia, much of Africa, the Caribbean, etc isn't "global", nothing is. It's also growing in areas outside the former Empire. For instance the Dutch had a team at the recent ICC World Cup. Cricket is also far ahead of baseball in terms of international competition. Whereas cricket is huge in many populous nations besides England and England has long since ceased to be the center of the sport, baseball is still dominated by the USA and attempts to turn baseball into a serious international sport have been greatly hampered by MLB's disinterest in the concept of international competition.

That's essentially the problem. Sure baseball has grown outside of the USA, but it hasn't outgrown the USA. Until that happens it's going to be something of an also-ran in the world of international competition. Which is too bad, because baseball has become a pretty widely played game, globally, just as much as cricket has.

[Rowdies4ever]

Never ever expected this thread to go negative.
I love baseball, and have seen little of cricket, but it interests me. Did some reading up on it, but unless I find a way to watch it on any regular basis dont think it will take.It's next to impossible to watch cricket in the USA unless you have a sat. dish and pay-per-view during the major test matches, world cup, or other competitions.

If you get AZN (an Asian-American network) on your cable, they used to show ICC Cricket World, a weekly review of cricket news, similar to FIFA Futbol Mundial. Currently AZN is showing Cricket Classics, an hour show showing excerpts from classic matches from Sharjah stadium. If you know something about the basics of cricket and watch these games you can get a better feel for cricket. I've been TiVo'ing these recently.

There's also something called Cricket Talk on one of the "ethnic" cable network channels that I don't pay for, so I've no idea what that is like.

Anyway baseball and cricket are so different it's really a little silly to try to compare them.

[Rowdies4ever]

The absence of these 22 yards makes baseball far too predictable. Since the ball has to be bowled waist high to the batter, it makes the batters task that much simpler. On the other hand in cricket, the batsman has to judge the line and the bounce of the ball correctly and in a fraction of second has to decide the most suitable shot for that particular ball. As for baseball, the batter can just set himself for the shot in advance because he knows that the ball can only be pitched in a very limited area and he doesn't has to worry about the bounce and the line of the ball. The shot which most of the baseball batters play is called a slog in cricketing terms and even the worst of cricket batsmen would fancy himself playing such a shot. This can not be said about the baseball batters. I am sure, that a baseball batter would struggle to even make contact with the ball if he bats on a cricket pitch and against a cricket bowler. Batting in cricket is all about the right footwork, technique and timing which unfortunately is missing in cricket's poorer cousin.
You really are no better than those idiot Americans who make idiotic comments about soccer, out of ignorance.

Yes baseball does not have the variables of the pitch surface and bounce that make cricket interesting, but you have everything else completely wrong. Cricket is a batsmen's game. A batsman is expected to score, and score often, in cricket. It is difficult to get a batsman out and thus it is a big deal when it happens. In baseball it is the exact opposite; baseball is the pitcher's game and the pitcher is expected to get most batters out. A good batter is doing well to hit .300, that is, more than two thirds of the time when he swings, he misses. Hitting a baseball pitch is not easy and anyone who compares a baseball pitch to cricket's "slog" does not know what he is talking about. Also the batter in baseball does not have the luxury of choosing which ball to hit; he must swing or he will be struck out. He does not have the luxury of a big flat paddle to hit the ball with, either. Here is a book you need to read:

http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660/ref=sr_1_1/103-0971978-4719848?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182574304&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660/ref=sr_1_1/026-7558031-0217219?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182575200&sr=8-1

Playing Hard Ball: County Cricket and Big League Baseball [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)
by E. T. Smith (Author) "Cricket and baseball are like parents and their teenage children: they have so much in common and yet remain a total mystery to each other..." (more)

Book Description
A cultural comparison of two national games—cricket, English in origin, and American baseball—written from the viewpoint of a top-class practitioner of both codes. E.T. Smith, the young Cambridge University and Kent batsman, has spent the winters since 1998 in Spring Training with the New York Mets baseball team. It has enabled him to contrast and compare arguably the two most iconic of sports from the inside. Apart from learning two very different techniques, he learned that the sports' ultimate heroes, the Babe and the Don, might as well have come from different planets, and baseball's pristine Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a far cry from the ramshackle cricket museum at Lord's.

The rest of your comments are equally silly and ill-informed. There is no point in responding to them. You simply don't know what you are talking about. Until you know both sports well, you simply shouldn't try making these silly comparisons.

[Kerry Dixon's Boots]

You really are no better than those idiot Americans who make idiotic comments about soccer, out of ignorance.

Yes baseball does not have the variables of the pitch surface and bounce that make cricket interesting, but you have everything else completely wrong. Cricket is a batsmen's game. A batsman is expected to score, and score often, in cricket. It is difficult to get a batsman out and thus it is a big deal when it happens. In baseball it is the exact opposite; baseball is the pitcher's game and the pitcher is expected to get most batters out. A good batter is doing well to hit .300, that is, more than two thirds of the time when he swings, he misses. Hitting a baseball pitch is not easy and anyone who compares a baseball pitch to cricket's "slog" does not know what he is talking about. Also the batter in baseball does not have the luxury of choosing which ball to hit; he must swing or he will be struck out. He does not have the luxury of a big flat paddle to hit the ball with, either. Here is a book you need to read:

http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660/ref=sr_1_1/103-0971978-4719848?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182574304&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Hard-Ball-Cricket-Baseball/dp/0349116660/ref=sr_1_1/026-7558031-0217219?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182575200&sr=8-1


The rest of your comments are equally silly and ill-informed. There is no point in responding to them. You simply don't know what you are talking about. Until you know both sports well, you simply shouldn't try making these silly comparisons.

A balanced post and one I agree with for the most part being a huge fan of both sports. However, I take issue with this fact - a .300 batting average means the batter gets on base 3 out of every 10 at-bats NOT that he connects on 3 of 10 swings.

In fact a batter in baseball connects far more often with the ball. Sometimes it is fouled off (in cricket a batsmen can use this to his advantage, not so in baseball). He can also hit it into play but to a fielder who catches or throws him out - this does not mean he has swung on and missed the pitch either, merely he has not played it into a gap well enough to advance to first base.

In cricket the field of play has 4 times the area of play (ie it is a 360 degree open field versus the 90 degree field in baseball - that measure may be wrong but you get my meaning). This makes field placement a lot more restrictive in baseball and a lot easier to defend against.

Also in cricket you do not have to run, in baseball you do. If you could pick and choose when you run in baseball, batting averages would be much higher.

Finally your point about a batter in baseball having to swing or he strikes out is also not 100% accurate - he only strikes out if he already has 2 strikes against him. In cricket the ball is not always arrowed towards the stumps but chances are if a cricketer swings and misses he'll be out, bowled, lbw or nicked behind. There are no absolutes on either side of the argument.

But at the end of the day, hitting a round ball with a round bat is bloody hard to do well. As is amassing a test average of 50+. My hats off to all the top class sportsmen who do this well.

Oh and for the record I was at the University of Kent in the late 90's and both Smith and Dean Headly used to frequent our gym - both top class geezers.

[yasik19]

look guys, soccer and hockey is better than both.;)

[BridgeMonkee]

The rest of your comments are equally silly and ill-informed. There is no point in responding to them. You simply don't know what you are talking about. Until you know both sports well, you simply shouldn't try making these silly comparisons.

See, I was very pleased with your posts to this point. It was an intelligent response. Ho-Hum.

I think that the sports of baseball and cricket have a lot in common and are indeed comparable. not silly at all

[BridgeMonkee]

look guys, soccer and hockey is better than both.;)

Hockey is great. Big fan of the Red Sox myself.

http://www.redsox.ch/






.

[yasik19]

Hockey is great. Big fan of the Red Sox myself.

http://www.redsox.ch/

boooooooooooooooooooooo

[srd....]

the daddy of stick and ball games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#History)

:cool:

[BridgeMonkee]

the daddy of stick and ball games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#History)

:cool:

Ah, yes a wonderful sport, would be great to play it on ice though. . .

btw - I actually had a relative in the 1888 US tour y'know :)

[thecastigador]

I really don't care to get in an argument about this, but you all do know that baseball is incredibly popular in all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean (i.e. Latin America, Japan, and parts of S. America, right? It's hardly just an American sport.

You realize you just dismissed pretty much the entire western hemisphere as "America", right?

[Kerry Dixon's Boots]

You realize you just dismissed pretty much the entire western hemisphere as "America", right?

You stated that baseball was played by more than just "Americans". I was simply pointing out that "America" is a continent and people from "America" can be considered "American".

In the same way I can be considered European, being, as I am, from Europe.

[thecastigador]

You stated that baseball was played by more than just "Americans". I was simply pointing out that "America" is a continent and people from "America" can be considered "American".

In the same way I can be considered European, being, as I am, from Europe.

"America" is not a continent. South America and North America are continents. Someone from Mexico is Mexican and North American but not "American".

[Kerry Dixon's Boots]

Derbyshire just beat the West Indies ahead of the series with England. Are they worse than Zimbabwe at this stage? Bangladesh?

It's pretty embarrassing to see the fall from Ambrose and Walsh just a few years back.

[Miguel Alvarez]

In the same way I can be considered European, being, as I am, from Europe.

I thought you were from the Islands?

[Oblivion_Master]

those two sports are suck

i prefer basketball after the football off course. also boxing i very like

[Passage]

the daddy of stick and ball games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling#History)

:cool:

Ace!