Arseface

All those games you mentioned before I'm looking forward to (I still haven't gotten around to playing Mass Effect 2 yet though.) Otherwise I'm looking forward to Halo: Reach (mainly for the forge), Dead Rising 2, Mafia II and Fallout: New Vegas. Some of the arcade titles look promising this year too

Thats good to hear.

I haven't been up to much either, haven't even spent much time on the 360. Past few eeks have been jam packed. Been meaning to finish both Alan Wake and Limbo. And haven't vene started Crackdown 2. I have to say, I'm going to have to go over my budget for games this year, too many. You thinking of getting Kinect?

Really. Australia is still technically British. So is New Zealand. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Bhutan (?) were under the complete control of Britain for roughly a hundred years. The Brits controlled every aspect of their society, and had plenty of time to slide cricket and plenty of other weird customs into their collective society. Zimbabwe was controlled from 1888-1965, 77 years. Kenya roughly the same. South Africa was ruled by Britain from 1806 to 1910, MORE than a hundred years. Sri Lanka was a British possession from 1796 to 1948, and even then it was a Dominion.

Meanwhile, the whole damn WORLD is within the US's sphere of influence. That's what we get for being rich and cranking out popular culture. Not sure who you mean is in Japan's sphere, but it's definitely not South Korea. They both have extremely strong economies. Hell, you probably watch more US-made movies than anything else. That doesn't mean that baseball has driven out cricket. Mexico has been right next door to us, repeatedly invaded since the 1800s. But baseball isn't that big there, either.

Meanwhile, you're trying to devalue Japan's love of baseball because we occupied them for 6 years? That's NOTHING compared to how long Britain dominated the cricket countries, and that's the longest we occupied any of the baseball countries.

No, it's just a difference in the culture of the games. Not a big international competition, but big, huge domestic ones. I mean, hell, the biggest lacrosse gets is its international play, but that doesn't mean it's any more popular or better than, say football, which is bigger domestically.

Um, what? What are you talking about? They're good at soccer because they're hispanic?

We are among the richest countries in the world, if not THE richest. We steal everyone's hockey players and we mostly don't give a rat's ass about the sport. Baseball is the second most popular sport here, and the MLB is widely regarded as the pinnacle of baseball skill. Teams like the Yankees drop RIDICULOUS salaries on these players. Their home countries can't compete, which is why Japan has all the restrictions.

Depends on the level (Little League World Series, for instance, always has international teams). But it's just a difference in the culture behind the game, rather than somehow being a qualitative difference it's simply a difference.

Being as I'm from the US and would call myself American, I would agree with you outside the realm of absurd internet arguments. I'm not from a place that uses one-American-continent as the rule. But I can still find it pretty cool that the Americas have done pretty damn well.

What? Have you watched any international baseball competitions? How 'bout MLB?

In international games, Venezuela, Puerto Rico (look, if you can use England and Scotland I can sure as hell use the US and Puerto Rico), Japan, South Korea, the US, Cuba, and Canada are probably the best. Canada may be iffy, I'm not sure, but my impression was that the rest were all pretty evenly matched. Very good.

Reasonable enough. Same as a tag out.

What? No, I'm not claiming their victory. I'm not allowed to be happy that people on my continent are kicking Europe's ass? Hell, large chunks of Africa were happy that Ghana was still in the World Cup (so were large portions of PG county, but that's just because, well, we're a country of immigrants, and around here that usually means African or Hispanic. And occasionally the Africans are Ghanan). What's the difference?

Hey AF, how have you been.

And in the US, MLB baseball is filled with so many assorted Dominicans, Cubans, Venezuelans, other South Americans, plus Canucks and the occasional Aussie, that it's absurd. Not so many Japanese and South Koreans because definitely the Japanese and I think South Korea restrict whether players can leave their leagues or not.

Edit: The point to that being that while the actual major competitions aren't international, the teams and players are.

How do you decide which batsman is out? Whichever is closest to the dude who just got the ball thrown to him?

Can't really claim what? That our continent has dominated? Why, just because every other team but one is European?

That's a figment of the way baseball is set up. Professional, moneymaking competition is mostly between MLB teams, owned by businesses. They play in the MLB against the same teams every year. International competition is completely separate. Cricket, on the other hand and from what I can tell, is played mostly or only by national teams.

It's the same deal with soccer. The big competition is the World Cup and the tournaments that lead up to it, rather than, say the English Premier League. Or am I wrong about that?

Okay, and if there were any point to doing something like that in baseball, baseball players probably could and would do it. But there ISN'T anything like that. Instead, there's playing to try to tag out or throw out runners. Which is waaay more interesting than the same thing in cricket.

Run this by me again. In cricket, the batsman hits until he decides he's hit it well enough to get a run. After that he and the guy at the other end both run until the ball gets back to the wicket-keeper or the wicket itself? And then after that happens are they still up or are they done? Or do they have to run as soon as they hit it?

EDIT: And want to hear something interesting? Very first World Cup, 1930. First place was Uruguay, second was Argentina, third was the US, fourth was Yugoslavia. True, the US hasn't been in the top four since, but DAMN has the American continent dominated. 19 world cups, 76 teams in the top four, 21 of them American. Admittedly, that was mostly Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay over and over again, but still.

Oh, yeah.

And Baseball is popular in Cuba, Japan, Korea, China, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the US, Nicaragua, Colombia, Costa Rica, and some other marginal examples. Note that I'm not using the marginal examples like Puerto Rico and Taiwan which are, one way or another, by one person's perspective or another, part of another country.

I don't. Infielders make some incredible plays. OH! You mean the random guy at the county fair? I bet if they were drunk enough they would be.

Did I already send that to you and forget about it, though? I was suddenly filled with doubt after posting it.

No, who said they didn't count? But it isn't a world-wide popular sport, just an Indian one. Didn't we bring this up the last time we had this argument, relative to the Olympics? Your claim being that baseball was played only by the US while trying to claim that cricket was played all over the place meant that cricket was more popular.

Well, there's no real analog to that in baseball, but if I want to see people nailing small targets with balls I can go to a county fair and watch people play the ripoff games.

Yeah, it's different. I was just pointing out an odd bit of similarity.

Hey... did you know you replied to me on your page and not mine?

Yes, but that doesn't alter the fact that it's JUST India that likes it, plus some spare change floating around other countries. Hinduism might be the third-largest world religion, but that doesn't mean it's anything but Indian.

Really? You mean professional cricketers beat out some kids playing baseball?

You got a problem with people who throw sidearm, HUH?

Arse! I just found out! The moon landing was faked!

But the Indians number in the billions. What they like is, by definition, popular.

Ok, that specifically wasn't 100 metres, but I've seen it done a few times. It was the best run out I could find on youtube, and it easily beats that double play vid, and that was a pretty sweet throw.

Also, you have to have your arm rotate above the level of the shoulder.

And here's a placeholder for a bit. Watch some teenagers make a very pretty double play. Reminds me of the way your cricketers play outfield, actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzhxzhToS1E

All right, this was weird. This Japanese (?) (could be Korean, I think) clip. Ignore the head-trauma catch at the beginning. Not relevant. But they show the pitch the guy hit towards the end. I have no idea if that'd even be legal in MLB (I don't think it would be-- I've never seen anything like it-- but it seemed to have something very much in common with a cricket bowl. Though it bounced earlier than you guys would have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoQqonpVfas&feature=related

Sorry, I've had enough youtube trawling. I'm going to find some breakfast.

Ever watched a Bollywood movie? Can we really trust the Indians to know what's entertaining?

Only a few people can play baseball well. Catches are a tiny part of it. Sorry, man, I'm unimpressed. All that buildup for that? Throwing the ball whilst sprawled on the ground from a catch and nailing that, not bad at all.

But a hundred meters that wasn't. Not even close. That was less than a hundred feet. That'd be like a infielder throwing the ball and having it smack right into the plate. Which wouldn't serve any purpose, seeing as this baseball and the ball has to get to the catcher, but whatever.

Cultural bleed, yes. But you have to admit that theory seems to rely on some very tight cultural bleed: namely, baseball. It's the only thing that we seem to have changed in those six years, and the game preceded us there. Plus, they play by slightly different rules, so apparently we couldn't culturally osmose them into playing the game right. I mean really.

EDIT: Also, a counter-example. Mexico. Borders the US, has been occupied repeatedly to differing extents. Yet baseball in Mexico is of only middly popularity. In Japan it is THE single most popular spectator sport.

Not arguing that a glove doesn't (presumably) make it easier. Arguing that a glove doesn't make it any less interesting.

It does happen on occasion (throwing back to the catcher from the outfield) but it's much more likely that the outfielder will throw to a cutoff and he'll pass it on. If you throw all the way in yourself, it won't get there as quick.

Look, Arse, we didn't put a gun to their heads and force them to play baseball, when OBVIOUSLY they should have been rushing to play cricket. US troops, accompanied by Aussies, Indians, Kiwis, and Brits, occupied them for about 6 or 7 years before we said "okay, you're independent again, excuse us while we go have fun in Korea, mind if we leave a couple bases hanging around?"

And the action is no less interesting because they're wearing a glove. A close tag-out at a base is interesting in and of itself.

Well, it DID get a hardon for baseball, but not as big a hardon as Japan did. You are dwarfed by Japan's gigantically phallic baseball bat.

Says who? American troops were stationed in Australia in the thousands, yet that didn't make Australia get a hardon for baseball.

What? No. Great catches in the outfield aren't the only point of baseball. Harder might be possible. More interesting? No. Catch the ball and throw it back. How fascinating.

Okay.

Dude if you want a userbar i could do you one i have a userbar request thread stickyed