Walker

Yeah, but they still have the same sort of tactics. Our national fielding coach is actually a retired baseball player.

We'll agree that it's more complicated, but it's not a lot more complicated than cricket.

The overall game is simpler, but there are a lot of aspects which are complicated. The LBW law for instance. If a batsman is hit on his body (with no contact with the bat), and the ball hit him in line with the wickets (in the imaginary rectangle created by the wickets), but hasn't bounced on leg side (the side his legs are on, rather than his off side, the side his bat is on), and the umpire thinks it would have hit the wickets had the batsmans body not been there, then he should judge the batsman out. The batting and bowling technique is also a lot more complicated.

The comment about the leggy was for the guy in the first baseball vs cricket video - or any baseball player trying to bat in cricket. He wouldn't be able to hit that ball. A cricket player would have difficulty.

Yeah, but the extra speed comes from flicking your forearm around at the very end.

Yeah, but thats just what that bloke was talking about, and we agree that he obviously didn't know what that was. It makes sense in a way.

Oh, I thought it was a comic which was about baseball vs cricket.

But if he hadn't had the guy backing him up, he would have lost time getting back to the ball after he hit it back (or given away four runs if he'd been touching it and the rope at the same time) and had to get up and throw the ball back himself. Do fielders not back each other up in Baseball?

But would you agree that fielding in Baseball is easier than fielding in Cricket?

I don't see how. The way I see it, baseball is a more technical game, and whilst the subtle nuances of how to hit or run might be difficult to master, it's less interesting. Cricket is both simpler (which applies to all the yobbos and bogans, etc) whilst being more complicated at the same time (which applies to everyone else).

No, but we were arguing which ones harder to play. A decent leggy (a ball that spins from a right handed batsman's left to right) and he'll be completely lost. Like this one. Incidentally, that is my favourite part of cricket: spin bowling.

The big difference is that she gets a lot of her speed by bending her elbow and hooking her arm around. It's got to come solely from your shoulder and wrist/fingers with bowling.

Because there's only one innings (he's talking about the one day form of the game). If a batsman is out, he doesn't get a chance to bat again in that game. Batters in baseball get nine chances.

I cannot find the comic.

Yeah Muppet Christmas Carol wasn't all that bad lol You're completly right, Sesame Street isn't what the Muppets was. I'm not usually one for musical based movies, tv shows etc but the Muppets is on of those special exceptions. lol

You have what, nine fielders in a quarter the area of cricket? Having 11 fielders in a full 360 degree area is much less fielders per square foot.

Does that mean a lot of catches are dropped or missed because they've tried to use the glove instead of the bare hand?

However easy it is to score is relative. If getting 500 runs is common, then it's obviously not as hard. If it's easy for both teams to get 500, then however easy it may be doesn't matter, because it's negated by being easy for the other team as well. You wouldn't apply common Gridiron scores to Soccer, because it's obviously harder to score in Soccer.

If the batsman hit's the ball, he has to run - no strategy regarding the running part of that equation. I'll agree that maybe the running in Baseball is a little more complicated, but it's hardly rocket science.

But without a cricket technique, he's not staying in for more than an over. He wouldn't be able to play a defensive shot, for instance.

Actually, bowling isn't like that. You have to keep your arm straight through the delivery. Bowling in cricket 150 years ago was essentially a lawn bowls bowl. Then people started bouncing it. Then they starting bringing their arm up higher so it was going horizontally (youtube Lasith Malinga, he's a great bowler who uses this action). Kept getting higher until it was completely overarm (most of the time at least).

True. I wonder at what point they measure the speed of a bowl from?

That's not right at all. A batsman has as many bats (he faces as many balls) as he can. Depending on where the batsmen end up after making a run, whoever is "on strike" (at the end that will be bowled to) will face the next ball. They keep swapping until one of them gets out, and a new guy comes in, and they keep going. A batsman could theoretically face an unlimited number of balls.

Oh the Muppet Show stopped running in the Early 80's but it was a great show. They sell them on DVD I believe. Sesame Street only had cameos from certain characters like Kermit. It's basically what made the Muppets famous. The Muppet Movie, the Great Muppet Caper, The Muppet's Take Manhattan, and Muppet Treasure Island are the only decent films.

I heard that they are gonna try and make a new muppet film, which is to be written by Jason Segal (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but they are gonna try and recreate what they had back in the 70's - 80's. Can only hope because now days it is only marketed to very young kids. I miss the underlying adult humour that was occasionally hinted at. Good times. The Muppet Show is excellent btw. The only decent muppet film that has been made in recent years was Muppet Treasure Island.

The Muppet's do rock ! lol It's such a shame Jim Henson passed away. The muppets have never been the same since. Been a big fan but I only like the first 3 movies and of course the Muppet Show.

But you know what I mean. It's pretty special.

Getting there and in position is the same in cricket, except it's harder because you don't have a giant ball magnet attatched to your hand.

Out of curiosity, say a baseball fielder has to dive to his right (glove's on the left hand) to catch a ball, does he position himself in such a way so that he can use the glove to catch it, or does he just use his ungloved hand?

But ease of score is relative. If both teams can score easily, then it suddenly becomes more difficult, because the standard has been raised.

And you don't have to decide where to hit in cricket? You still have to avoid the fielders and run. I don't see how running in itself can involve strategy though, because you have to run no matter what. The only factor is speed. Whereas in cricket, you have to decide whether to run and how many runs to attempt.

I just watched a video (which you provided) of a baseball player tring to be a cricket batsman (I still think it was pretty funny watching his wild baseball swing). He wouldn't be able to hit a yorker because he has a horizontal bat. The ball would just go under.

And I know I shouldn't be, but I feel insulted by that last comment. Bowling is completely different to pitching. It's more of a catapult movement than a spring-like movement, you aim at the ground, rather than where you want it to be when/if the batsman strikes it.

I have to say that I would have assumed that a bowl would generally be faster than a pitch. One of those surprising results to find out otherwise.

What's an "at-bat"?

An over is made of six balls (the equivelant would be the pitcher throwing six pitches). At the end of every over, the fielding team has to bowl from the other end of the pitch with a different bowler. You have two batsman at opposite ends of the pitch at any one time (hence why you can't get 11 outs), and to run, they each have to run to the other guy's end. If they get one run, then they've swapped ends, and the other guy gets to bat.

What are you asking by "hits five times in a test match"? I don't understand. A batsman stays in, going through the above motions, until he gets out (which can happen about 10 different ways).

I was referring to you personally beating your dad. Imagine that times a million.

What is a war or battle but a high stakes contest? A sport is just a contest, and it's the only thing I can liken it to that would be able to convey my point.

It's actually not that easy to hit a cricket ball, because the area the bowler's allowed to aim at is a lot larger, the ball could move through the air, bounce in a different direction off the pitch, etc.

I'm just saying that if you get under it, and position the glove to where it's going to land, it's impossible to drop.

No, we put the run against the bowler, and it contributes to the batting team's score, but it doesn't contribute to the batsman's runs. It's called an extra. A home run in baseball is hardly equivelant to a run in cricket. A base is hardly equivelant. We're talking about a game where a par score is generally 700 runs (with two good teams, of course). What's an average number of home runs in a baseball game?

How? You have to run if you hit it. There can be no strategy. Hit the ball as far as you can and run for your life. In cricket you have to decide if you can run, how many runs to take, etc.

You don't reckon I could? That baseball guy wouldn't be able to block a yorker (a ball which is aimed at the batsmans feet), or smack a bouncer (a ball whihc bounces early and comes up towards the batsmans face) for six. Plus he'd look completely ridiculous doing it with his baseball swing.

It's six balls per bowler. The bowler bowls six balls, then you have to use another bowler for the next over. You can go beck to the first bowler in the over after that, but you can't use the same bowler for 2 consecutive overs. There's only one innings in the one day and Twenty20 versions of the game, and it's 20 overs for each team to bat, so technically it's 40 overs.

If a batsman hits the ball, he doesn't have to run, but if he can and he doesn't, then he's probably not going to be a batsman for very long. The equivelant of a plate would be the crease, which is a line drawn about a yard in front of the stumps which is the batsman's safe zone. He he's behind that and someone takes the bails off the stumps (excluding the bowler's bowl) then that's not out. If he's outside it, then it is.

Yes, yes. Damn you and your stream of posts, which ninja'd my reply.

EDIT: looking back on this, I realise we've ruined each other's visitor page :lol:

Yeah, "Ks" (as in the plural of the letter K) is just easier than K/ph, plus it's how I would verbalise it. There's no reason why it should be any harder than cricket? Maybe you just find it hard without assistance, because your used to giant mittens catching the ball for you?

It's not unsportmanlike to hit the ball back to the bowler. It's more of a return fire sort of thing.

The idea behind the wide rule is that it stops the bowler just bowling wide continuously, and preventing the batsman from getting runs by essentially not trying.

What? Tell me, in what possible way is there more tactics involved in baseball batting than in cricket batting?

I hate those guys, they're incredibly biased. Just like with that Rugby vs Gridiron one, they used a professional athlete from the American sport, and an ametuer athlete from the foreign one. I've already agreed that a baseball is harder to hit with a baseball bat, but what they didn't explore was how long he could go without going out (which is about ten times more important than scoring runs). I'm pretty confident I could have bowled him out (and if you've seen me bowl and know anything about cricket, then you'd know that I'm not a very good bowler) given an over (six balls).

That's the thing with you yanks. No appreciation for tradition and history. It's always, "Here, now!" Here's an explaination of one of the most competetive, hallowed seiries in Cricket history. It's called the Ashes, and it all started in 1882 - back when Australia was still just a bunch of British colonies. The Australian cricket team was touring England, and something unthinkable occured: The Australians won a game on British soil. The British were so upset that they took the bails (the little wooden bits that sit on top of the stumps), burnt them and put the ashes in a little urn. There was a mock obituary saying that English cricket had died and "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia." Remember the first time you beat your dad at sport? It was like that, but on a national scale. Now, every year and a half we play for The Ashes (which are those same 128 year old ashes).

And if we're going to have an analogy fight, then a series would be a war, not a battle. A war is a lot lest interesting if it's just a bunch of light skirmishes.

Well, I don't know a lot about the intricacies of Baseball. Cricket is about a battle between two teams - the overall picture - and the associated nuances. Not just a handful of big hits, a few easy-as-**** catches, a bit of running and then someone leaving as a winner.

The whole point was that I've used the gloves, and having only rarely dropped a ball, I can say that it is way too much of an assistance. Why don't you just hand a net over the outfield and say, "if the ball lands on the net, it's out"?

I think of it like this. Baseball (and the shorter forms of Cricket) can be seen as short skirmishes, but Test Matches are epic battles. Sure, the skirmishes might be fun to watch, but it's ultimately the Test Matches that matter. A team could be world number one in One Day matches and Twenty20 matches, but if they're not the top in Tests, then they're nothing. I think you just have to understand the history and tradition behind cricket to be able to appreciate that.

I was thinking 3 strikes by nine innings makes 27 (not including balls or fouls, obviously). It's not so much about watching the ball get smacked around (not in itself, at least) but observing the battle between the batsmen and the bowlers. It can get rather intriguing.

I've played Tee-ball, so I've used the giant gloves. It's way too easy to catch something with them. I've also played cricket, where you get no help in catching the ball. It's coming for you at 150 ks out of the air, and you have to be prepared to catch it, without assistance. That usually results in some of the best catches you'll ever see, and no one ever get's a broken hand or anything. Unless you're the bowler, and the batsman has just hit it back at your face at 150 ks.

No, but you said if they get struck on the body, they get a free base. What kind of wusses do you have playing baseball?

And the batsman could sit there and not make runs, but then his team would lose.

Yeah, but baseballs are virtually impossible to drop, because you get given giant novelty mittens.

Batsmen don't get given runs if they get hit. They get nothing, and have to face the next ball a little bit less of a man than the last one. That, or they can hook the ball for six, and shame the bowler. It takes courage to do that.

I never thought I'd get caught at 2000 characters.

You think Cricket isn't a strategic game? Test cricket is like a game of chess (except in every way). If you bat first, and are making runs without getting wickets (players out), then you have to decide when to declare (the end of your innings), if you're not making enough runs, you have to tell your batsmen to take more risks, and vica versa. If it's close to the end of the day and you lose a wicket, you have to decide whether to send in a crappy batsman to bat for the rest of the day, at the cost of not making many runs, or even him being injured and not able to bowl, or your good batsman who may not be as focused at 17:30 as he was at 10, and risk an easier wicket. And that's just batting. Fielding is also very complicated. The bowler has to decide how he is going to bowl, which side be is going to bowl from and how he is going to try and trick the batsman. The fielding captain has to try and set field positions accordingly, and that's a lot more difficult, with only 9 players (11 minus the bowler and wicket keeper) to spread across a 360 degree area.

But that's only several 2 hour games. I'll agree that no one can watch a whole test match (despite what they say. It's hard enough to sit completely through a two hour game of AFL), but it would have less meaning if it was played for a lesser amount of time. It's good when you think that they used to go on until somebody won.

I'll also agree that it may be more impressive to see a batter (baseball) hit a ball over a wall, which was both going faster than a cricket ball would, and which had to be hit with a round bat, but they only have to face 27 balls maximum in a game. When you think that a cricket player has to stay on the ground, facing over 500 balls a day and trying not to get out, and to get runs at the same time, you have to admire them for it.

Cricket doesn't have rules. It has laws. What other game has laws?

Baseball is WAY more difficult, requires so much more skill to hammer out a run or to strike out a batter. It might be slower, but that's because some people have the longer attention spans neccesary for more strategic games. (Did I go there? Yes, I did. Personal attacks!)

Here I was thinking you were glorifying slow, strategic games. Maybe you just don't have the attention span for it (see how I turned that one around?).

The fact of the matter is that bowling is the most interesting thing about cricket. You can make the ball move in the air three different ways (drift (which is how baseball players do their curveballs), swing and reverse swing), you can make it spin off the pitch in several different directions, you can make it bounce higher or lower, etc. That variation is why I love cricket. That and watching the ball get hit out of the ground.

Oh they have figured out the cup all right. It's considered suicide to go onto the field without one. They've also figured out shin/knee pads (like a whole lower leg pad sort of thing), thigh pads, arm guards, chest guards and helmets (though surprisingly, only in the last twenty/thirty years). Of course it still hurts when you are hit with a rock hard ball travelling at 100 m/ph (for your benefit, you crazy redneck).

And it's considered poor form (it's against the laws to play in an unsportsman like manner) to continuously bowl at the body.

More difficult? Sure, it might be hard to hit a ball going at 100 m/ph (to use your archaic measurement system) with a round bat, but these people train their whole lives to do that. What's not easy is staying out in the centre of a pitch for up to 8 hours at a time, in the middle of summer (thats an Australian, Indian, Carribean or South African summer mind you. These are some of the hottest [sub]continents on the planet) with only two breaks where you get to leave the pitch. It takes skill to hit a baseball, but it takes balls to be a cricketer. And that's not even mentioning the fact that the ball could be aimed anywhere on your body (and often is). Head, ribs, elbows, even nuts. There's a significant amount of flinching for the unprepared batsman.

EDIT: actually, thats how the Poms beat our (the) best batsman of all time. Aiming solely at the body.

You want to talk about a long game? How long does baseball go for? A few hours? Test matches (can) go for five DAYS. Yeah, you try to sit down and watch a whole one. Up until recently our shortest form of the game was a one day match, which, you guessed it, takes up a whole day. We've now got these Twenty20 matches now, and they go for about 3 hours.

Seriously, I urge you to Youtube some Shane Warne, particularly the "Gatting ball". He is still probably the greatest spin bowler in the world, and he's been retired for close to three years.

Oh, and I'm definitely not getting angry or anything. Just a bit of fun.