[UA] Baseball

[David M Jacobs]

On 15/05/07, Greg Stolze <gregstolze at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> But I think the reason baseball and football (okay, fine, "Americanfootball") are big in the US and nowhere else is one of the same reasons
> we did so well in WWII: a pair of huge honkin' oceans between us and
> cultural rivals.


FWIW, in Australia, American football (AKA "gridiron") is generally seen as
a less-than-manly sport, thanks to the copious amounts of body armour worn;
we have four other codes of football (rugby league, rugby union, Australian
rules and soccer) which are played professionally (and touch football, which
isn't), which don't require much in the way of protection.  Mind you, the
injury rates (particularly in rugby union) can be quite high.

I know that (at least here in Sydney) we have an amateur university gridiron
league, but that's about the extent of its popularity.

Baseball is more often seen in the forms of softball and tee-ball, which are
often school sports.  AFAIK, we don't have a professional league.  I guess
baseball has been overshadowed by the all-pervasive cult of cricket.
(IMNSHO, baseball's a much better spectator sport than cricket -- at least
it doesn't involve long periods of nothing happening, you don't have to sit
there for up to five days before you see a result, and you don't need a law
degree to understand the rules.  YMMV.)


On 15/05/07, Chris Cooper <insectking at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Greg Stolze <gregstolze at comcast.net> wrote:
> When was cricket invented, anyhow?
>
> Wikipedia says this:
>

<snip>

There's also French cricket (which Wikipedia also has an entry on), but it's
not a "real" sport in the way that, say, "real" cricket is reputed to be.

I think part of the appeal of cricket is also that it's the defining sport
of the British Commonwealth.  All Full Member nations of the International
Cricket Council are (or were) Commonwealth countries.  (You can check out
the full list of member nations here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Cricket_Council_members.)
It hearkens back to days of Empire and all that...


-- 
David M Jacobs
davidmichaeljacobs at gmail.com

"[N]ever hide a gun in a cat box. Some moron cat would manage to fire it."
-- Tim Powers.
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