USA humbled - again (cricket)

[Neurotik]

@betenoir

Sigh You’re taking me way too seriously, Neurotik. Of course I know Americans don’t get any pride out of winning a primarily American competition. That’s why I was making a little* joke * about it being called a world series when it’s not, while at the same time dismissing a truely international competition as being beneath are notice.

I’m sorry if I’m taking you too seriously, but it’s become a pet peeve of mine for people to point that out. You wouldn’t believe how many people earnestly criticized the US for the World Series when I was living in the UK and I got somewhat sick of it. The worst was when I watched the BBC run a quick article on the Yankees once during the World Series, comparing the Yankees to the most successful European football club, Real Madrid. Which was entertaining until it came to one section counting up how many World Series titles the Yankees had, then they put a little comment in parantheses that the United States didn’t invite any clubs outside of th US to participate. Which irritated me for two reasons: 1) poor Canada was ignored again, and 2) it shows a lack of understanding of what’s going on in MLB as compared to how sports are run in Europe, giving the impression that there was an American baseball board that invited clubs to participate in its tournament when that’s not at all what occurs. Anyway, now I’m all worked up.

See, we would have won handly, we just didn’t feeeeel like it . Not about one of those quaint foreign games.

Well, see, the problem is that it’s true. Let’s face it, to be good in a sport you need a couple things: popularity of the sport, money, organization, and population base. Population base is not a problem for the US, nor is money (just needs to be allocated. We’re really just talking popularity of the sport for a lot of things in the US, a lot of which is marketing, to be honest. And organization. Well, I think rugby’s actually fairly well organized in this country from what I can see, they just lack visibility and popularity and some money. Same with soccer, although, they may get a big break if they play their cards right with the NHL committing suicide as of midnight tonight. Cricket has some bigger problems, apparently.

It really just comes down to, we don’t feel like it. Would we win every year? Of course not. But there’s no reason that with some proper organization we couldn’t be consistently top 10 in any of those sports. And let’s be honest, the rest of the world doesn’t want that. What they want is the US to remain crappy in soccer, rugby, cricket but they want us to care so they can have something to hold over our heads. Which is dumb, because once we care we’re going to start getting good.

Anyway, this isn’t really directed at you, betenoir, but some other folks in this thread.

@Exgineer

You were surprised? I’m stunned. Why do you have a squad and who do they play against? Seriously, what the hell? I thought that we were the only people who could conceivable care about this game, because we were the only ones who played it. Does anybody else have a team? Do they want to play?

I think he’s talking about NFL Europe. But yeah, the game is played elsewhere. It’s pretty big in Samoa. And a friend of mine in the UK, who I met while I was living there, actually plays in an amateur league outside of London.

@Duke

It’s not going to happen, not because of the lack of will amongst cricket’s devotees in America–whose attachment to the game, considering the circumstances, outstripped anything I ever saw in England–but because of the mendacity of cricket’s powers that be. That, I feel, is a shame.

OK, I have to ask. What, exactly, have they done?

[Miller]

@betenoir

And maybe we could be a little humbled by our failure in more international sports…or a little less full of ourselves, just a bit .

Or, even better, we as a species could stop using sporting events as a yardstick for national accomplishment. I’m no more humbled by our collective inability to hit a ball with a stick than I am prideful of our collective proficiency in hitting a different kind of ball with another stick.

[Exgineer]

@Neurotik

I think he’s talking about NFL Europe. But yeah, the game is played elsewhere. It’s pretty big in Samoa. And a friend of mine in the UK, who I met while I was living there, actually plays in an amateur league outside of London.

Okay, that makes sense. I never thought that NFL Euorpe had much of a following, and Lobsang’s post would bear that out. It’s American football, and they don’t care.

I understand your point **Duke/b], re: the economics of fielding a national team, but the point remains. We’d have to care, nationally, in the aggregate, and we don’t. On the whole we just don’t care about cricket, but we love baseball. Bermuda doesn’t have the wherewithal to field a baseball team either, and they don’t want to. We don’t want to field a cricket team, because we don’t care, but it just sort of occured because there happened to be a few cricket hobbysts here. It’s like soccer; outside of a few million fans, nobody cares.

I’d love to see us become more competitive in international sports, but the fact is we’re pretty insular when it comes to sports, and the Big Two are baseball and football. If there were World Cups in baseball and football we’d be there.

If you look at it from a different angle, it’s not that we don’t want to play with anybody else, it’s that nobody else wants to play with us.

[owlstretchingtime]

You may not realise this (or give a toss) but America has a HUGE impact on international cricket - here’s how.

In the 70s and 80s the top dog on the world stage was the west Indies, primarily based around a changing quartet of devilishly fast bowlers (a cricket ball is a solid object and is no laughing matter when propelled at your head at 90mph).

Now they have a load of pie chuckers.

Has the Windies stopped producing tall athletic boys with long arms? Of course not, it’s just that they all go to the USA to play Basketball (surely the world’s dullest game?), and are lost to cricket.

Professional cricket is not especially well paid, unless you get to the top, and certainly can’t compete with a sports scholarship and the potential rewards of the NBA.

So the USA is a malign influence on world cricket.

A couple of other things - The worlds most famous sportsman (ie the person that most people in the world have heard of) is a cricketer - Sachin Tendulkar. Bet ya didn’t know that!

Also there was a brief period of poularity of American football in the UK, Channel 4 used to show it at tea time on sundays - a highlights package. It soon died out though. We even had professional teams and everything.

[seosamh]

As noted earlier on these Boards, one of the most influential cricketers of all time was John Barton King, a bowler who played for Philadelphia.

According to cricket statistician Bill Frindall, aka The Bearded Wonder, on the BBC’s website:

“Philadelphia staged first-class matches between 1878 and 1913 and toured Britain in 1884, 1889, 1897, 1903 and 1908. Their greatest player was John Barton King (1873-1965), a right arm fast swing bowler who headed the English averages in 1908 with 87 wickets at 11.01 and subsequently took all ten wickets in a first-class match.”

I believe that Barton King’s mastery of swing bowling stemmed from his baseball experience. For non-cricketers, a bowler’s average is worked out by dividing the number of runs hit off him by the number of wickets he took. Anything under 20 for the season is excellent, so 11.01 is pretty stupendous.

[Duke]

@owlstretchingtime

Has the Windies stopped producing tall athletic boys with long arms? Of course not, it’s just that they all go to the USA to play Basketball (surely the world’s dullest game?), and are lost to cricket.

Professional cricket is not especially well paid, unless you get to the top, and certainly can’t compete with a sports scholarship and the potential rewards of the NBA.

Actually, the last Carribean player to star in the NBA was Patrick Ewing from Jamaica…but he played in the 80’s and 90’s. The real sporting drain on the Carribean countries is football, the English kind. Look at all the Jamaicans and Trinidadians (stand up, Dwight Yorke) plying their trade in the English leagues.

Really, it’s not so much the bowling that’s letting down WI (although it is to some extent), but the batting. Lara can’t do it alone every match.

A couple of other things - The worlds most famous sportsman (ie the person that most people in the world have heard of) is a cricketer - Sachin Tendulkar. Bet ya didn’t know that!

Are you sure it’s not Beckham? I doubt many people in, say, Thailand, Japan, or north Africa have heard of Tendulkar, but Beckham is a household name there.

[Duke]

@seosamh

As noted earlier on these Boards, one of the most influential cricketers of all time was John Barton King, a bowler who played for Philadelphia…Theirgreatest player was John Barton King (1873-1965), a right arm fast swing bowler who headed the English averages in 1908 with 87 wickets at 11.01 and subsequently took all ten wickets in a first-class match."

King wasn’t just a swing bowler, he invented it, at least according to knowledgeable observers such as Sir Don Bradman and Ranjitsinhji. Yep, baseball actually taught cricket something…

[Neurotik]

@owlstretchingtime

In the 70s and 80s the top dog on the world stage was the west Indies, primarily based around a changing quartet of devilishly fast bowlers (a cricket ball is a solid object and is no laughing matter when propelled at your head at 90mph).

90 mph is devilishly fast? That’s a below average fastball in baseball - and pitchers don’t get a running start.

Has the Windies stopped producing tall athletic boys with long arms? Of course not, it’s just that they all go to the USA to play Basketball (surely the world’s dullest game?), and are lost to cricket.

Professional cricket is not especially well paid, unless you get to the top, and certainly can’t compete with a sports scholarship and the potential rewards of the NBA.

You sure about this? I’m trying to think of some basketball players that are from the West Indies, and aside from Duncan, I’m coming up blank. But Duncan was a swimmer, not a cricketer.

So the USA is a malign influence on world cricket.

Good. With any luck we can kill this godawful sport.

A couple of other things - The worlds most famous sportsman (ie the person that most people in the world have heard of) is a cricketer - Sachin Tendulkar. Bet ya didn’t know that!

I was under the impression it was Michael Schumacher.

[owlstretchingtime]

@Neurotik

90 mph is devilishly fast? That’s a below average fastball in baseball - and pitchers don’t get a running start.

You sure about this? I’m trying to think of some basketball players that are from the West Indies, and aside from Duncan, I’m coming up blank. But Duncan was a swimmer, not a cricketer.

I was under the impression it was Michael Schumacher.

Baseballs are pitched faster as pitching is a more effficient method of launching a ball

A baseball is pretty quick, but it’s lighter. Also bear in mind that a cricket bowler uses deviation from the pitch to vary the trajectory. It’s also legal (and common) to aim at the body and head.

Boys from the Windies may not be breaking into the NBA (Like I would have the foggiest idea) but they are most certainly going to the USA on sporting scholarships.

In fact boys of Caribbean descent seem to be deserting the game in England too - until recently the England team had a fair few British blacks, but now there’s only Mark Butcher, and few pressing up from the counties. They all want to be footballers. It’s still popular with British asians.

As to Tendulkar - he is by far the most famous man in India, and pretty much everyone in Pakistan and Bangladesh would know him. Throw in the cricketing nations and you have at least 1 billion people who definately know who Sachin Tendulkar is (and a lot of these wouldn’t know Beckham or Schumacher if they fell on them - maybe Mike Tyson comes closest?)

[Duke]

@Neurotik

OK, I have to ask. What, exactly, have (the USACA) done?

Well, pull up a chair…

Let’s start with the cite-able stuff. First off, their lack of media savvy is appalling. They can’t get mentions of cricket on TV, radio, or the newspapers…and, if you can’t do even that, what good are you as a governing organization? Secondly, there’s their election process, such as it is. A small sample of the linked article:

As of August 2004, the much-anticipated elections of the USA Cricket Association (USACA) are in total limbo. There is no word on when, if ever, they are going to be held. Not even the preliminary steps, such as the appointment of an independent auditor to oversee the proceedings, have taken place. And no one seems to know when it is all going to happen.

I’ve been following the USACA follies for some years now, and this isn’t an exception, this is standard operating procedure. Everything, from elections, the selection of players for the national side, to the allocation of its meagre funds, the USACA does is the result of some back-room deal. Thirdly, when the USACA does come to some decision,

The only reliable source of information about USACA is the proverbial grapevine. Typically, some member of USACA’s “inner circle” will anonymously post a sensitive letter, e-mail or memo on a bulletin board, a web site or on the internet. This will be picked up by other equally anonymous folk, and the flurry of e-mails will bring a lot of hitherto unknown facts to light. Then, as the correspondence subsides, all is silence again—until the next leak, or unexpected revelation.

Says the redoubtable Deb K. Das, who’s been following this a lot longer than me. Fourthly, the USACA has a nasty habit of scheduling events, having everybody (else!) involved scrambling to get them organized, then cancelling them for no reason at the last minute. I know of three age-group tournaments where this has happened. Fifthly, the USACA is pathetic at raising money. Their entire operating budget this year was $200,000. My old colleague David Sentence managed to help raise $100K in Los Angeles alone for an inner-city cricket team. I work in fundraising myself, and IMO it’s inexcusable that the USACA can’t do better. There are any number of multinational corporations that do business with the Indian, Pakistani, Carribean, and English ex-pat community that the USACA could be seeking sponsorships with. (Then again, if the USACA actually had more money, I shudder to think what they’d end up doing with it.)

“And that’s not all!” I have heard and seen much, much nastier stuff. The most notable situation I’ve heard of (corroborated by several witnesses) involved a character who I’ll not name here, I’ll call him “Prez.” Prez was a higher-up in the USACA executive who decided to take an interest in the Southern California league I played in. Mysteriously, Prez quickly became the president of the league, then proceeded to replace everyone on the league board with his business associates. Having consolidated his power, Prez then set about to rid the league itself of people he didn’t like, mainly by issuing veiled threats and “disqualifying” certain teams. All this with the implicit consent of the USACA, who, when someone I knew appealed to them, told him, “It’s a local matter.”

Then there’s the racism. I’ve heard a lot of it in the US leagues, directed at players, officials, even me (not my opinion, the opinion of my friends on the team). What does the USACA do about this? Nothing, of course…why would they, when so many of their own decisions are racially charged?

All told, the USACA is a mess, so much so that some years ago one of the good guys named Chico Khan set up a rival US executive, which finally got the International Cricket Council to do something. Of course, the ICC’s response was to tell Chico to “stop this nonsense,” or some such, and so the USACA continues unchecked to this day. Now the ICC has sent a representative, Gary Hopkins, to the US to develop “international world-class cricket” here. Needless to say, I have a few suggestions for him.

[Neurotik]

@owlstretchingtime

Baseballs are pitched faster as pitching is a more effficient method of launching a ball

Feh. Excuses. So, you’ve got an average speed about 5 mph slower than the average fastball, along with a bat twice as wide (and flat). And we should be impressed with cricket batters?

A baseball is pretty quick, but it’s lighter. Also bear in mind that a cricket bowler uses deviation from the pitch to vary the trajectory. It’s also legal (and common) to aim at the body and head.

Only about 10g lighter, not very much. As for varying trajectory, I’m not impressed. Every baseball pitcher has to vary his trajectory in the air - a pitch with no movement on it gets the adjective “hanging” and winds up in the bleachers. Aiming at or near the head is not exactly unknown in baseball, either, although no one ever admits they do it intentionally.

That’s some hideous stuff there, Duke. Why won’t the ICC recognize a different body?

[owlstretchingtime]

@Neurotik

Feh. Excuses. So, you’ve got an average speed about 5 mph slower than the average fastball, along with a bat twice as wide (and flat). And we should be impressed with cricket batters?

Only about 10g lighter, not very much. As for varying trajectory, I’m not impressed. Every baseball pitcher has to vary his trajectory in the air - a pitch with no movement on it gets the adjective “hanging” and winds up in the bleachers. Aiming at or near the head is not exactly unknown in baseball, either, although no one ever admits they do it intentionally.

A baseball feels softer (at least to me) than a cricket ball. And what you may not realise is that a fast bowler deliberately, and legally, aims at the batsman’s head, body and goolies, as well as the feet (getting hit on the toe is excruciatingly painful). As the ball is bounced on the wicket, it can hit cracks or it’s own seam and move about quite unpredictably. That’s why they wear those pads (and a box).

Also whilst a cricket bat is flat, it isn’t quite as “swingable” aas a baseball bat - put it this way; our debt collectors don’t go round threatening people with cricket bats!

Back in the 80s there was a regular contest between top flight cricket allrounders (ie can bat and bowl well) and their baseball counterparts. The cricketers won every time. Needless to say once the Americans realised they were getting beaten like ginger step-children they cancelled the contest (not a good loser is Johnnie yank( and they can be pretty repellent winners!).

I’ve never been to a baseball game, and have only seen it on late night telly here. However I think I might enjoy it. It is certainly the only American sport that I think I would ever bother with, if I had to pick one. It seems to be the only one with normal sized and shaped people in it.

[Jervoise]

@owlstretchingtime

I’ve never been to a baseball game, and have only seen it on late night telly here. However I think I might enjoy it. It is certainly the only American sport that I think I would ever bother with, if I had to pick one. It seems to be the only one with normal sized and shaped people in it.

Uhh, baseball has rather relaxed rules when it comes to drugs testing and drug use, compared to other sports (IIRC). Those boys aren’t normal-sized by any sense of the word.

In other news, Australia have have thrashed Enzed to move into the semi-finals. England or Sri Lanka are next up for us. Be afraid.

[iampunha]

@owlstretchingtime

As to Tendulkar - he is by far the most famous man in India, and pretty much everyone in Pakistan and Bangladesh would know him. Throw in the cricketing nations and you have at least 1 billion people who definately know who Sachin Tendulkar is (and a lot of these wouldn’t know Beckham or Schumacher if they fell on them - maybe Mike Tyson comes closest?)

I might be missing your point, at least in part, but I think Michael Jordan might be who you’re looking for. I recall hearing stories about the Olympics back in '92 when kids from very foreign countries A) had his jersey and B) knew who he was.

[Neurotik]

@owlstretchingtime

A baseball feels softer (at least to me) than a cricket ball. And what you may not realise is that a fast bowler deliberately, and legally, aims at the batsman’s head, body and goolies, as well as the feet (getting hit on the toe is excruciatingly painful). As the ball is bounced on the wicket, it can hit cracks or it’s own seam and move about quite unpredictably. That’s why they wear those pads (and a box).

I realize what fast bowlers do. Heck, didn’t the English invent bodylining because they couldn’t beat the Australians any other way?

But baseball players get plunked quite often, even in the head. Sammy Sosa just recently was knocked in the head with a fastball that shattered his helmet and gave him a concussion. Ichiro Suzuki was recently given a concussion as well from a hit on his head, and of course, there was the famous Mike Piazza - Roger Clemens incident(s). One guy caught a fastball in the face a few years ago that I saw on national TV. Knocked out a bunch of teeth, he had to get stitches to sew up the gash and have his jaw wired shut. Of course, Kirby Pucket had his season ended after taking a shot in the face, and if you reach way back, Tony Conigliaro had a Hall of Fame career ended after he took one in the head leaving him with permanent double vision. And, of course, players take hits elsewhere. Jermaine Dye has basically had his career ruined by a ball that went off his leg and fractured it while he was batting. Then there’s the people who have lost time after being hit on the wrists and having them broken, etc.

Also whilst a cricket bat is flat, it isn’t quite as “swingable” aas a baseball bat - put it this way; our debt collectors don’t go round threatening people with cricket bats!

That’s true, but it also doesn’t have to be. The ball is a bit harder so it will go further straight off the bat (although, it also felt like the bat was softer than a baseball bat, so it may just end up equaling out). Not only that, but the fielders are more spread out in cricket, so it’s easier to get a hit. You also don’t need to hit it as far to get a sixer as you do to get a home run (again, from the cricket field I was playing on when I was in the UK). It looks like a cricket field’s diameter tended to be about 150m in diameter, so you really only needed to hit it about 80-85m to get a sixer. But the minimum you’d need to hit a home run is about 100m, often more like 115m. The width is more practical for the bat’s defensive purposes in cricket, it makes it easier to defend the wicket.

Back in the 80s there was a regular contest between top flight cricket allrounders (ie can bat and bowl well) and their baseball counterparts. The cricketers won every time. Needless to say once the Americans realised they were getting beaten like ginger step-children they cancelled the contest (not a good loser is Johnnie yank( and they can be pretty repellent winners!).

What, playing cricket? Of course they’re going to lose. First off, I guarantee none of them can bowl. It was the hardest thing I had to do when I was playing cricket. I kept getting faults because I kept crooking my elbow during my bowls (it was just a friendly match with some people I knew). So I wound up having to do them extra soft, resulting in a bowl that wound up anywhere between the batter’s knees and waist and going really slow. It was ugly.

My batting was another story. I could bat just as well as most of the other guys after a few times playing and getting used to the spins. It really wasn’t that much more difficult than baseball, you just have to alter your approach a bit. One guy tried to patronize me, saying I was going to have to learn to hit something besides waist high, full bowls (Full tosses? Full bowls? One of the two.) and gave me only a half speed bowl with not much spin right at me. He was somewhat surprised when I just turned my feet and pulled the ball straight over the rope.

Anyway, I’ve never heard of these matches you speak of. What do you mean by top flight cricket players? And what do you mean by top flight baseball players? We’re certainly not talking players like Tony Gwynn, Robin Yount, George Brett, Joe Morgan or Darryl Strawberry here. I’d be curious to see any links you might have to them. Or even the names of the participants.

I’ve never been to a baseball game, and have only seen it on late night telly here. However I think I might enjoy it. It is certainly the only American sport that I think I would ever bother with, if I had to pick one. It seems to be the only one with normal sized and shaped people in it.

Next time you’re in the area, I’ll take you to one.