JCC Ender Sigh rags on 'Murica

Cricket is like baseball, except even more boring and with rules as incomprehensible as those of American football.

 

No baseball is like rounders. The sport, not the film.

 

I was comparing baseball and cricket because they're by far the most popular "bat and ball" games.

 

Never again disrespect rounders if you value your life.

 

I mean, a lot of Americans find baseball boring, so I don't think cricket has much of a chance. Now part of MLB's problem is there's way too much disparity in what different teams can spend. So some teams never have any chance and that's a lot more boring. The NFL's salary cap really ought to be adopted there. We do "sell" players in terms of trades and draft picks.

Yeah, see the thing is, though NASCAR is popular with a certain segment of the USA, the vast majority of Americans hate it, make fun of it, and don't want to be associated with it. I think it's an extra reason people here don't want jersey sponsors: it reminds them of NASCAR and that's gross.

 

That's a shame, really.

 

Actually cricket is quite a bit more straightforward if you're looking at it "ground up." It's got a pretty intuitive rule structure until you try to impose baseball logic. I say this as a fan of both sports.

 

Hasn't NASCAR been in pretty dire financial straits for the past 5 or 6 years due to declining audience (the economy and waning interest)?

 

I've been to cricket matches and baseball games. Cricket is much more exciting. And trades dare nothing like selling players (which is the common term, it's not actually selling players, it's selling their remaining contracts) for example, today Liverpool sold Luis Suarez for approximately $115 million to Barcelona. If it were the NFL or MLB he.would be going for a few other players, not cold hard cash. And don't argue with me, solo.

 

Can you please tell me how to explain cricket to Americans as briefly as possible? I've tried, but it turns into an hour long mess.

 

My advice - because it worked for me - is to direct them to this website: http://www.dangermouse.net/cricket/ and have them pretend they don't know how baseball works, that just heaps on confusion.

 

I'm sorry, but a sport that can have a single game lasting for days can't be taken seriously.

 

Oh tennis, you magnificent, ignorant fool.

 

Ghandi is rolling in his grave right now. Or his ashes. I'm not sure what you people do.

 

At least tennis is easier to understand.

 

But still too long. I need a five sentence summary.

 

His peeps? I feel like we taught you nothing.

 

Please, your sports interrupt play for TV ad breaks and involve lots of bum groping. You have no right to suggest others are less serious.

 

You can't bring the ad issue into this, considering how ingrained the whole 'ads on uniforms are a good thing!' is so ingrained in the culture of many international sports.

 

Yes but they don't. stop. playing. for commercial breaks!

Here's highlights from a T20 match.



T20 - or Tenty20, etc - is the fastest form of cricket out there. Cricket consists of overs of six balls each, and t20 is limited to 20 overs a piece. So it's over in around 3hrs. Test matches tend to favour conservative play, and one day internationals (ODI) favour a more aggressive style but t20 is all about out right risk taking in both batting and fielding.

Please advise, any of you, how this looks "boring", bearing in mind that your opinion of cricket (looking at you Darth Gay) has been based on what others have said and not watching any matches...

 

Both are still inherently annoying!

 

Oh, I'm not arguing and I'm aware that it's quite different. I'm just saying we have the trade system instead, which I do think is superior. It's one thing I am leery about with getting more into the Premier League... It has a lot of baseball's parity issue where some clubs just can't ever hang on to good players and really have a shot. They are just farms for the Yankees, Red Sox, etc. It makes each match a little less interesting. And sorry, Tunes, but that's why Americans keep losing interest in baseball.

And really the business genius of the NFL lies in the salary cap, trade, and free agency systems. That helps keep people nationwide equally invested in their teams because literally any team can go from worst to first or vice versa in a year. To an outsider it might look like the NFL has overtaken MLB as America's favorite league simply because Americans like to see contact sports. In actuality, the parity of the teams is the main reason. It might mean top players and teams don't get paid nearly up front as much as they do in the PL, but on the whole it's made the NFL so much more popular overall that everyone wins -- TV money, endorsements, merchandising... No the teams can't spend that extra money on players, but it's still money they all get to enjoy to a fairly large extent because of revenue sharing.

... And now I've just realized the further irony that we the great capitalist country yet we happen to be the ones with a favorite sports league that is fairly socialist

 

Maybe it would speed things up if they switched to a coffee interval?