U.S. vs. Venezuela: Viewing at The OverDraught

Question: why does Venezuela produce such good baseball players (particularly shortstops: Carrasquel, Aparicio, Versailles, Valdivielso, Guillen, ...), but not soccer players? Contrast this with other South American countries.

 

With all due respect, that begs the question, Mr. Magpie.
Why did baseball take root in Venezuela? Was it because of American oil company employees sent there in the first half of the 20th century?
As to Cuba, the US influence is perhaps based on geographical proximity and military presence.

 

In the Caribbean and Latin America there are "baseball" countries and "futebol" countries, and rarely does a country excel at both. In general, the non-Spanish speaking countries in the Caribbean are football or cricket countries (the ones with British colonial histories), but among the Spanish-speakers, it's a mixed bag:

Baseball:
Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and possibly Panama.

Futebol:
Everywhere else.

The "baseball" countries don't have very strong soccer national teams, although Venezuela seems to be improving. They have long been by far the weakest of the 10 SA countries. The DR shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti, definitely a football country. Cuba isn't too bad, relatively speaking, but given the sporting infrastructure, you'd expect them to be better than most Caribbean countries. Puerto Rico is so bad that they had a NY ethnic league team play its Shell Caribbean Cup (pre-WC quallies) a few years ago, and had to "import" native New York guys like ex-Rev Tom Lips (who can't speak a lick of Spanish) for his first international cap.

Tom

 

Was the Shell Cup the same competition that caused worries over Armas being eligible for the Nats ?

My memory is a little fuzzy

 

Yes, that was it. Basically, it was a tournament that whittled down the Caribbean countries to a manageable level, and was used as a pre-qualifier for the WC and Gold Cup qualifyers.

I still say that it was a loophole that got Armas elligible. The tournament is (or at least should have been) a FIFA/CONCACAF tournament, so if you play for a country there, you are tied. Not that I am complaining about having Armas with the Nats, but you can bet that sort of thing isn't going to happen again.

Tom

 

I wonder how much the " he is an American, how good could he be ? " factored into FIFA letting him play with us and the lack of a protest from our CONCALAUGH brothers

 

The division by language may fit (though not exactly), but is that the explanation? Is not the explanation more tied to American influence in the given country. After all, Spain is a soccer country, so why aren't all Spanish speaking countries also soccer countries<

 

Because when Spain was most directly influencing those countries it was from the 1500s onward, and their influence around the world gradually faded. By the late 1700s, those countries had a population that spoke the language, but more so in Latin America than in North America, the Europeans inter-mingled with the native populations and a culture separate from "Spain" emerged. In the US and Canada, people living here at the time were much more linked to the "English" culture, even though we fought a war for independence.

And the real reason is that soccer and baseball emerged as popular pastimes in the mid-19th century, so those countries were well established apart from their old colonial roots. Soccer was essentially an export by British sailors -- note all the English names of clubs in South America, like Newell's Old Boys and River Plate (not Rio del Plata). And yes, the "baseball" countries were the ones where there was a heavier American business influence. The foreigners who ran the sugar cane plantations and factories taught the locals their games, so the sport of choice was really was more dependent on who those foreigners were.

Tom

 

Yet soccer did not take root in America in the 1800's. Cricket was more popular than baseball in the early part of the century, but baseball eclipsed cricket because (I think) of the lack of equipment needed and the relatively short duration of a game.

Perhaps soccer (or football) was the game of the lower classes (and sailors), whereas cricket was the upper class game. It was the "upper" class that played cricket in the US, while the general populace took to baseball as opposed to cricket.

I have been reading the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels, and his sailors play cricket when they have the chance. Never a mention of football. As you know, these novels are set in the period 1790-1815. For what that's worth.

 

You have excellent taste.

 

Soccer/football a sport didn't really come into being until the 1860s, when the LOTG were authored. That was also when Rugby split off. Soccer came to this country in the early 1900s when immigrants from Britain started playing it. There was a pretty decent league here as well, comparable to any on the world at the time, but it never made it to the next level from a "foreign" sport.

I would strongly disagree that cricket was more popular than baseball in the early 1900s. You could argue that that was baseball's Golden Age, with the formation of the NL/AL as we know them, with teams remaining in place for more than 50 years, and the first permanent concrete/steel stadiums being built (and a few are still standing today).

And cricket didn't need any more equipment than baseball, since they play bare-handed (as did baseball players in the early days). Same idea, a guy throws a ball, another guy tries to hit it. The wicket could be almost anything--I've seen Caribbean immigrants propping a pizza box on a trash can...

I don't know about the origin of cricket, but if they were playing it in 1815, that's at least 40 years before soccer/football as we know it was widely played, so that would make sense. If the books were set a hundred years later, it would definitely be soccer that they'd be playing.

Tom

 

I said 1800s, not 1900s. Baseball was "invented" in around 1830 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown NY (if you believe that myth). No quetion that by 1900, when the American League was formed, baseball was, or was about to become, the national pastime.

 

And the socio-economic reason why soccer/futbol was taken up so widely in the poor countries (the majority of peoples were poor during that particular era... even more so than today) was..?

 

Exactly. I have friends from Europe who told me that, when they were kids, if a ball and net wasn't available, they'd just throw down a couple of t-shirts as markers, and kick around an apple or a rock or anything that could be kicked.

I'll be at the match viewing. Thank heavens for living in Cambridge, only 10 minutes walking from the OD.

Now to play MLS Extra Time 2002, where, in my current campaign, the Revs are on a 25-game winning streak and have scored more than twice as many goals as their opponents. Maybe it's time to up the difficulty...

 

These questions and more answered in the book...

"And the socio-economic reason why soccer/futbol was taken up so widely in the poor countries (the majority of peoples were poor during that particular era... even more so than today) was..?"

Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism.
by Andrei S. Markovits, Steven L. Hellerman

Best academic book on soccer/society/American sport history out there -

The authors explain how sports took root around the world in the later 1800's as a facet of mass culture; basically: activities that had been the indulgence of the leisured class became accessible to the working masses once industrialization "allowed" (ahem: unions) them some leisure too. At that point some sports clubs also evolved beyond mere participation outlets into professional outfits with whom ordinary people came to identify in terms of personal connections. Good examples: Celtic, Newell's Old Boys, there are hundreds of 'em.

Interesting side note: here in Mair-kuh, baseball and university (American) football developed as the sports followed by the masses in the later 1800's. College football has been "pro" nearly twice as long as the NFL. I hear there's some pro hoop tournament going on that take place at college arenas...

Off to the stadium - it's 60 degrees and sunny

 

Side note...

Early American history also has links to the evolution of sports, certainly before they became structured and widespread, but John Adams wrote of playing "...bat and ball, football...wrestling and sometimes boxing," when he was younger, and he was born in 1735.

 

The large crowd the gathered at the Overdraught to view the US/Venezuela match came away convinced that Venezuela is a baseball country.

 

Did the crowd recognize how blatantly offside the 1st goal was and how Ty Keogh sounded ridiculous for insisting over and over again that it wasn't?

McBride (onside) passes to player on his right (in offside position) via the (irrelevant) crossbar!

 

(photo by Andy Mead/YCJ)

 

Nope. Pictures can be fabricated. We know Monty really wasn't there because we didn't see him on TV.