11/05/24
July 27, 2004
Cricket, the truly original American sport.: According to this article, cricket was enjoyed widely in the US prior to baseball becoming the favourite past-time of the masses.
Superb article, cheers, johnnyboy.
posted by Fat Buddha at 08:27 AM on July 27, 2004
No problems FB!
posted by johnnyboy at 08:41 AM on July 27, 2004
Neat article....thanks Johnnyboy...
posted by smithers at 09:01 AM on July 27, 2004
So, I know of good 'cricket for baseball fans' web sites, but does anyone know of a good 'baseball for cricket fans' websites? Turns out I get to take a friend (an aussie) to his first baseball game next week.
posted by tieguy at 03:15 PM on July 27, 2004
BBC has a couple good links explaining the basics and baseball jargon.
posted by goddam at 03:27 PM on July 27, 2004
thanks, goddam.
posted by tieguy at 04:55 PM on July 27, 2004
The first ever international game (in any sport) was played by the United States and Canada at the St. George's Cricket Club in Manhattan in 1844. Can that be true? Has international team sport only been around for 160 years?
posted by JJ at 06:52 AM on July 28, 2004
In any sport? The first Olympics were between different nation states and happened quite some time ago.
posted by rodgerd at 04:40 PM on July 28, 2004
rodgerd: all of those were individual sports, no team anything until the modern olympics. No idea on the validity of the claim, but international team sport didn't start with the ancient olympics, at least.
posted by tieguy at 10:18 PM on July 28, 2004
This is basically all true, give or take the author's exaggerations (those of us who remember Swells from the NME know that his main reason for existing is to wind people up). However, just as baseball used to be popular in the UK in the early years of the last century, cricket was widely played across the states until the mid nineteenth century. Rising anglophobia and the need for a home grown national game helped baseball replace it (and giving rise to the whole Cooperstown 'myth'). See Ed Smith's book 'Playing Hard Ball' for the parallels between cricket and baseball. By the way, not many people know that the oldest international test feature isn't the Ashes but the USA vs. Canada!