Cricket versus Baseball

Recreation Sports
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Cricket versus Baseball:
Which is actually more of a sport?
Another one of those great Anglo vs American debates that always seem to happen.
Leaving aside the Football/Soccer, the Rugby/Football, the tomarto/tomato, -our/or debates, as well as the essential arguement about the best American band: AC/DC or Led Zep, let’s just focus on the matter at hand.

Both involve bats and balls, and some degree of running catching, and tossing. Forgive me if I get the terms wrong, I am just a Canuck, stuck in the middle again.
So, Americans (South, Central & North)
&
well, the rest of the world really,
step up and please educate this curious scholar of human behaviour.
Be advised that I am impartial to all sports except for wrestling, tiddly-winks and conkers.
Have away!

Baseball: seems strange as they run in circles, wear silly clothes, and pat each other on the ass with alarming frequency. Basically a bigger girl’s blouse of that already girly blouse’s game of rounders. Stickball? Nice try, still rounders!
They do manage to belt that ball quite far, and at strange angles, of which they seem to have very little control, though they pass it off at skill.
Overpaid arseholes, in my own ignorant opinion.
World Series? Where’s the world? Damn Americans only let the world play in little league or the Olympics.

Cricket: seems strange as they only run when they have to, lazy sods, wear silly clothes, but do not seem to revel in such ass-patting. Not really related to rounders at all, as it seems to involve more strategy.
They also manage to belt that ball quite far, but seem to have more control, and thus pass it off as skill.
Overpaid arseholes, in my opinion, but do they make as much as American baseball players?
And the World actually does get to compete, though the terms of winning or even scoring are beyond me.
:ponder:

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On my “to do” list.

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Where you from again? Florida?

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Cricket and Baseball are both sports equally. It’s not like they are aiming competitions such as air rifle, darts or golf. :neutral:

I am a baseball fanatic. If I’d been born in Melbourne, Mysore, Muckle Flugga, Minuwangoda, or Myubatuba, I’d be a cricket fan.

Some people say a three-and-a-half-hour baseball game is too long, but those people aren’t fans, so they can fuck right off. I’ve seen a few cricket matches, and quite liked the atmosphere of a 5-day test. Some spectators are watching their meat sizzle on the barbecue or reading the paper rather than watching Hansie Cronje get a century. That’s OK. In fact, it’s great.

The length of a baseball season, and the nature of the pitcher versus batter matchup means that statistics are more plentiful and meaningful in baseball than in most any other sport. If you’re into stats (and strategy?), baseball is hard to beat. Any decent fan of baseball can tell you hundreds of statistics about the history of the game. I haven’t seen this in other sports fans, but maybe it’s because I couldn’t be an intelligent part of that conversation.

I’d say both cricket and baseball are equally international at this point. Baseball now has the World Baseball Classic (held every four years), but everyone knows that MLB is where the best players play.

For me, the biggest problem with both sports is that it’s hard to organize a pick-up game. You can play one-on-one basketball or get a soccer game going with much less effort.

Some may argue that you don’t have to be super fit to play baseball. This is a point in baseball’s favor. :smiley: You can have a great left arm, be a LOOGY (Lefty One-Out GuY), and make a million dollars a year. So you don’t have to look like Lebron or Federer to be a baseball player. You can be fat (like David Ortiz) and be a big star. On the other hand, most pro baseball players are very fit, and they have to hit a hard ball that comes at them at about 100 miles an hour.

Baseball and cricket aren’t for everyone. That’s OK.

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Anyone who argues adamantly that one sport is far better than the other is a first rate moron.

If you grew up in a country where British cultural was jammed up your collective ‘arses’ you like cricket, if you grew up in a country under American influence you like baseball.

Most annoying part of the argument is when token pommie quips: “Baseball, isn’t that rounders?(italicized to highlight sarcastic over-enunciation) Back in England its a girls game.”
That guy needs to be kicked in the nuts.

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[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]

Most annoying part of the argument is when token pommie quips: “Baseball, isn’t that rounders?(italicized to highlight sarcastic over-enunciation) Back in England its a girls game.”
That guy needs to be kicked in the nuts.[/quote]
Correct. It’s not like that netball game that 8’ tall, black American girls with Attitude play, yo. :thumbsup:

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[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]
Most annoying part of the argument is when token pommie quips: “Baseball, isn’t that rounders?(italicized to highlight sarcastic over-enunciation) Back in England its a girls game.”
That guy needs to be kicked in the nuts.[/quote]
Why is that?
It’s God’s truth.
Guess I might be that token pom.
:whistle:
Kick me in the nuts, I dare you.
:eh:
You might have to run a bit after, though.
:smiling_imp:

All this said, Go Detroit!

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[quote=“TheGingerMan”][quote=“Deuce Dropper”]
Most annoying part of the argument is when token pommie quips: “Baseball, isn’t that rounders?(italicized to highlight sarcastic over-enunciation) Back in England its a girls game.”
That guy needs to be kicked in the nuts.[/quote]
Why is that?
It’s God’s truth.
Guess I might be that token pom.
:whistle:
Kick me in the nuts, I dare you.
:eh:
You might have to run a bit after, though.
:smiling_imp:

All this said, Go Detroit!
[/quote]

not sure why the pommie sports set is so hell bent on taking on this fight so often. Very unsporting.

Here are some more of God’s honest truths (and I hate that I have to do this because it is a behavior I loathe, but the rounders shit is inexcusable).

Football >>>>> Soccer (funny how first world nations not bound by dumb sporting traditions like NZ, Aus, US, Can. care so little about the boringful game and have taken to more complex and interesting sports. If it didn’t revolve around getting drunk and beating people from other towns up the Brits and Eastern Euros wouldn’t give a fuck either. The Italians only play so they can act out their fairy fantasies and flop around the field like homos, and the ghetto ass majority of the world only like because they can’t afford to play anything else).
Football > Rugby (though to be fair rugby is slowly evolving into its more evolved cousin. Its always the rugger buggers bringing up this argument, and that should tell you all you need to know).
Baseball >> Cricket (A ridiculous game propped up by the great sporting nations of India and Pakistan. The Colonialists should be happy they jammed it down the subcontinent’s throat, otherwise they’d only have 7 countries who gave a fuck -one of those being Zimbabwe, do we still consider that a country or has RZA already annexed it?-, luckily there is a caffeine break for the players mid-game to keep everyone from falling into a slumber).

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[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Be advised that I am impartial to all sports except for wrestling…
Baseball: … wear silly clothes… :ponder:[/quote]

So the OP likes wrestling, but he thinks baseball players wear silly clothes.

You be the judge. Who looks sillier?

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[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Cricket versus Baseball:
[/quote]

Forward: Huge baseball fan, and very curious about cricket, though never watched a 20/20 game before, never mind test games.

If running in a circle is dumb, then would track and half the Olympic sports and most car racing be even more dumb? But running in circles beats people running back and forth in the pitch holding huge paddles, that is just silly.

Often times I see people trying to experiment with this theory, so they put baseball player up to hit top cricket bowlers (usually extremely easy task for them to hit the ball), or put cricket players up to hit top baseball pitchers (usually no as successful, especially when the pitcher mixes in a few curve balls). But what I really want to see is a cricket player, trying to hit a baseball with his cricket paddle.

sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st … ortCat=mlb
Diamond Backs players hit cricket balls

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I’m pretty sure a cricket would get the raw end of the deal in any conflict with a baseball.

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[quote=“hansioux”]

sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st … ortCat=mlb
Diamond Backs players hit cricket balls[/quote]

Thanks, great stuff.

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Another interesting (to me, at least) facet of this debate is which sport has the more esoteric terminology. Before I read the cricket article on Wikipedia, I would look at BBC cricket news stories without the faintest idea of what they were talking about! Even now that I know the basic rules, I still find them hard to read. So I wonder, is baseball prose just as impenetrable to the unitiated?

I also wonder whether cricket players ever wear thongs when trying to break out of a slump.

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[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Cricket versus Baseball:

World Series? Where’s the world? Damn Americans only let the world play in little league or the Olympics.

[/quote]

Almost 30% of Major League Baseball players are non-American. That almost 30% come from 15 different nations.

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[quote=“haokaiyang”]Another interesting (to me, at least) facet of this debate is which sport has the more esoteric terminology. Before I read the cricket article on Wikipedia, I would look at BBC cricket news stories without the faintest idea of what they were talking about! Even now that I know the basic rules, I still find them hard to read. So I wonder, is baseball prose just as impenetrable to the unitiated?

I also wonder whether cricket players ever wear thongs when trying to break out of a slump.[/quote]

I think baseball terminologies are more straight forward. You can look at the terms and figure out what it’s talk about. For example, curve ball, sinker are just what they appear, a ball that curves or sinks. By comparison, cricket terminologies that describes similar things, such as spin or swing are pretty confusing. You can’t just describe the ball bowled as “a ball that spins (unless they have cricket equivalent of a knuckle ball, physically every ball spins),” or “a ball that swings (outside of cricket that makes no frakking sense).”

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Ok, unless a cricket bowler can do this, I am sorry, but baseball is much more of a sport

MLB San Francisco Giant’s ace pitcher Matt Cain (just helped the Giants get into the world series)

Mythbusters, how awesome are major league pitchers…

Now I know why the batters are so mad when they get hit…

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All sport is the same. You’re just trying to hit the ball and make it go somewhere, in holes, nets, boundaries, over the nets, through the hoops…they’re a lot like people. They may look different but at their core they’re the same, whether you take a rounder’s bat, or a cricket, or a tennis, or a golf club thingy or even if you’re just using fists and feet, it’s about putting the ball somewhere, no??? :bow:

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One of MLB’s best hitters trying his hands at cricket. He’s not very good at it…

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Wow. Blast from the past.
As for my who looks sillier, I was refering a year ago to team athletes in general, as opposed to the finesse of a Greco-Roman three round player.

Baseball is still a version of rounders, and well,…
It is just not cricket, which I hardly favour, but…

Which would a penguin play better?

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[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Wow. Blast from the past.
As for my who looks sillier, I was refering a year ago to team athletes in general, as opposed to the finesse of a Greco-Roman three round player.

Baseball is still a version of rounders, and well,…
It is just not cricket, which I hardly favour, but…

Which would a penguin play better?[/quote]

I imagine penguins would have trouble holding either… or any ball…