Today is the final match of 7 match series of 50 overs matches between India-australia tied at 2-2 with 2 matches rained off. It will start at 0800 GMT, can be watched at crictime.com for free. (Just close the ad links).
At least baseball is more exciting than cricket.
Slightly.
Well, OK, not at all.
I gotta admit I preferred the cheerleaders to the action on the field. Let’s face it - big blokes crashing into each other vs young women wearing very little. The chicks with pom-poms win every time.
But really, if I want to watch girls in short skirts, I have the internet. Oh boy, do I have the internet. I just find it weird that the actual NFL game seems somehow…unnecessary.
No reason why you should like soccer. People like different sports (or no sports at all) for different reasons.
But there’s plenty of “meaningful action”, and I think that’s what annoys soccer fans: people who don’t understand the game complaining about it.
It’s an American thing, really - I mean, they don’t play much soccer in India, but we’re not overwhelmed by Indians who have no clue what they’re talking about telling us how awful the game they don’t understand really is.
I find it odd that people who don’t like baseball have to point out that they don’t like baseball. It’s the same with people who feel the need to point out they don’t like soccer. It’s like starting a thread to proclaim that Russian literature is way too complicated for them.
The appeal of baseball is that its esoteric, it’s not for everyone, because it requires patience and attention, two things that a lot of Americans don’t have.
I dont know, I guess these days many Indians follow EPL, My brother is a crazy chelsea fan. And those who do not follow, most of them also would concede that soccer>all sports including cricket in terms of workout. Its just that most of us enjoy watching cricket more.
I think around the same time basketball players started wearing culottes.
That is one thing I hate about baseball - the players who look like unmade beds (Manny Ramirez was one of the worst examples of this in my opinion). As my husband has pointed out, help the umpire out - show him exactly where your knees are!
I find watching any sports on tv to be dull. I’d much rather be out doing something than watching others do it.
Of course, I also can sit through some of the lamest, low budget, B-movies and enjoy them, so to each their own.
I’m a fan, but I’ve got to say this new “mountain man beard thing” is pretty off-putting. Jesus, I’m getting old…
Baseball draws more fans than any other sport in North America. More people attend MLB games than attend any other sports league in the world. The National League is the oldest of all professional team sport leagues and MLB has been a mainstay of North American major sports for over a century, playing the sport is essentially the same fashion the entire time. Baseball and its offshoot softball forms are the most popular outdoor team participation sport in the United States.
It’s not “esoteric” by any measure. Anyone can enjoy it and understand it. Millions do.
Watched a bit of Arsenal vs Liverpool on NBC this afternoon (couldn’t compete with From Russia With Love, though) and it made me realize that if I wanted to become a soccer fan I’d need a bigger, wider TV to monitor what was going on on the rest of the field (pitch?). There seemed to be some strategy going on, though most footie player don’t seem capable of much strategizing on their own. 
No one’s ever watched an All-Japan Karate finals wherein the two combatants just stood there watching each other for 5 minutes of regular time, and for the next three five-minute extensions? It was a ruled a draw.
Those are more exciting nowadays, as Boston taught us.
Then why are there always these threads that make it sound like no one follows baseball? It takes a certain kind of ‘intellect’ to assume that just because he doesn’t understand something, it has no value.
But wait! (and I apologize if someone else has pointed this out). The inclusion of foul balls and pickoff attempts inflates this “action” calculation. That’s action?
The WSJ reached this number by taking the stopwatch to three different games and timing everything that happened. We then categorized the parts of the game that could fairly be considered “action” and averaged the results. The almost 18-minute average included balls in play, runner advancement attempts on stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches (balls, strikes, fouls and balls hit into play), trotting batters (on home runs, walks and hit-by-pitches), pickoff throws and even one fake-pickoff throw. This may be generous. If we’d cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we’d be down to 5:47.
Me, too.
I love both soccer and baseball, but they are very different viewing styles. I watch a baseball game while doing something else, usually reading or playing apps on my iPad. Soccer is 100% focus until halftime, then a 15-minute break, then 100% focus for the second half. Because the ball is constantly in play, constantly moving, and it’s always in a state of either building for an attack or attacking, which means that something could happen at any second. Baseball has its own excitement but it comes in much more predictable spurts with downtime in between. About the only downtime during a soccer match is either immediately following a goal or when someone has gone down injured. Although this summer I did see, for the first time in my whole life, timeouts during a soccer match: during the Bayern-BVB SuperCup the referee blew the whistle at 25’ and 75’ for a water break because it was too hot. It was kind of funny.
So there’s about as much downtime as baseball. 
I certainly the appreciate the concept of having some sports as a backdrop to other things.
One of my real simple pleasures is catching the end of a southern hemisphere Ashes test match on the radio, early morning UK time. Pottering around making breakfast with"test match special" on in the background.
I reckon if anyone really wants to know what makes the English tick then just tune in to TMS for an Ashes series and all will become clear.