There is a pull-out supplement in the latest Spectator, entitled “The Connoisseur’s Guide to the Cricket World Cup 2007”. Peter Oborne is very gung-ho about cricket just now (no link because the bit I am about to quote is stuck behind a registration wall – I read it on paper):
Never have there been so many outstanding international teams. Go back to the previous ‘golden age’ before the first world war and there were just three Test-playing nations: England, Australia and South Africa.
So far so routine, this being from a piece by Oborne entitled “A new golden age”, which he does explain. Basically, not only are there more good national teams now, and more excellent players, but they also play cricket that is entertaining to watch, unlike what was played a generation ago. But then comes this kicker, and in brackets if you please:
(Actually there should have been four: until 1914 the United States was well capable of competing at the highest level, and a cricket tour of the United States formed the background to Psmith Journalist, one of P. G. Wodehouse’s best novels. Unfortunately, the Imperial Cricket Conference, which governed international cricket, excluded America because it was not part of the British empire, so it went off and played baseball instead. This snub to the US at such a promising stage of its cricketing development, is one of the tragedies of history.)
I did not know that (more about this sad story here). I am not used to feeling spasms of hatred toward those who presided over the British Empire, although I often learn about things that make others understandably angry about these people. But I did when I read that. We have talked here before about cricket in the USA, but I do not recall this particular circumstance being mentioned by anyone. Apologies if someone did and I missed it. For while I would not put this particular tragedy of history down there with the Slave Trade and the Holocaust and the depredations of King Leopold, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest of them, this certainly does seem like a definite pity to me.
Talking of cricket, and what with cricket’s World Cup fast approaching, Samizdata’s travel correspondent Michael Jennings has been, well, talking of cricket. He has done a podcast with Patrick Crozier, about Australian sport in general, and Australian cricket in particular, what with cricket being the biggest sport in Australia. Did you know that Aussie pace ace Brett Lee (who will sadly be missing the World Cup because of injury) does commercials on Indian telly, and has had a pop hit in India? You do now.
And for more about how sport and politics intersect, do not miss this sports report by Guido Fawkes.
I’m not that interested in most sports, but it is interesting to contrast the way that Cricket is making a comeback in the US with the way that Soccer is treated.
Soccer, or “Metric Football’ has been more or less imposed on the public by the elites. As something that is supposed to be fashionable and international and ‘nice’ the sports loving public has rejected it in favor of American Football, Baseball etc. The only people who support it are immigrants who have it in their culture.
The famous ‘soccer moms’ of the 1990s seem to have lost interest. It is seen as a girls sport and certainly not one that real american men want to play. Sure there are going to be a few good American players, but it will probably never be the national obsession it is elsewhere.
Cricket is developing on a small and more ‘organic scale’ West and East Indian immigrants have set up local leagues and one sees the occasional pick up game taking place in publics parks.
Within a decade I belive there will be a thriving and substantial US cricket community.
I hope you are right, Taylor.
I quit watching baseball avidly when it became so unavoidably obvious that strikes and balls are called differently for different pitchers and batters. When I heard announcers saying you have to ‘earn’ a small strike zone (for batters) or a big one (for pitchers), and when I watched over head tracking video showing numberous bad calls consistently made in favor of certain outcomes, I completely lost interest in the sport. If I wanted to watch staged pseudo sports events I could be watching wrestlers in pink tights.
Cricket with those little wood bricks on top of the sticks looks like it is far more difficult to cheat the strike zone. For that alone, I would be more interested in watching it.
Cricket is developing on a small and more ‘organic scale.’ West and East Indian immigrants have set up local leagues and one sees the occasional pick up game taking place in publics parks.
Within a decade I belive there will be a thriving and substantial US cricket community.
Taylor, there are also plenty of local leagues and pick-up games in public parks for soccer, here in Chicago. And they, too, are set up and entirely manned by immigrants, most from Latin America.
I would certainly not look at this development and surmise that, therefore, there will soon be a “thriving and substantial US soccer community.”
The folks playing cricket in your example, and soccer in mine, were all born outside the US, and have simply found enough fellow immigrants that they can get some of their foreign games going.
But that hardly translates into any impact on the wider, native-born American culture and community, any more than the widespread and enthusiastic celebration of Chinese New Year by Asian immigrants here in the US portents an increasing interest in “average” American communities to have fireworks, feasts, and parades with big paper dragons in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year themselves (hint: they don’t. Try asking an average native-born American when Chinese New Year even is, let alone whether it’s celebrated).
Immigrants have always done their thing in this country, but their grandkids will be as immersed in American culture as every child born here is, and they, too, will eschew soccer and cricket in favor of football and basketball like every other American kid.
It’s a self-perpetuating process we’ve got going here, and it’s nothing new.
And yet if ever there was a working man’s game, it’s football (soccer). To quote the well known saying:
Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.
Cricket and baseball were played pretty much equally in America up until the Civil War — it seems to have been distributed according to which was more popular in the region of settler’s origin in England. Analysis of Civil War soldiers’ diaries showed baseball and cricket games being mentioned with roughly equal frequency. After that baseball started to pull ahead, although Philadelphia for some reason retained a lot of cricket activity much longer.
I think cricket might become an established professional sport in the US at least equal to soccer, perhaps a bit more. This is because of increasing immigration from Commonwealth source countries, but also because of cable TV sports channel’s voracious appetite for programming, and the desire of second- and third-tier cities for professional team franchises of any sort. In the past immigrant sports died out after the first or second generation, but cable TV has introduced a new (and money-driven) factor in the equation.
As I understand it cricket was played in Holywood in the 20s and 30s. Doesn’t Holland also have a national team?
England had the chance to become a baseball playing playing nation but they blew it.
The Baseball Ground, Derby, UK
Now why, I wonder
Changing the focus slightly here
Why was not Hurling instead of ice hockey, or Gaelic football a more likely candidate for national supremacy, than NFL Football, or basketball,
Given the Irish immigrants in the USA , I mean. Just asking.
RAB
Assuming that NFL footy got developed in the USA and nowhere else, is there perhaps something about the relationship between the USA and the rest of the world somewhat like Australia and the rest of the world when it comes to flora and fauna? In Australia, animals evolved different to everywhere else. In America, games did the same thing.
Or to put it another way, might the American cricketers have perhaps contributed somewhat to their own exclusion from world cricket by demanding too much control over the game, and by just generally not caring about the rest of the world? I’d love to know more about this episode.
RAB:
The Irish immigrants to the US were too busy running the local, state, and federal governments!
Now that is something I did not know! So all those Americans professing to “not understand” cricket are in fact just still sore at the rest of us? Or, at least, maybe had this attitude passed down to them from grandparents who were still miffed. That would explain a lot.
Interestingly, rugby is doing OK in the USA. I’ve known quite a few people who have worked in the USA as rugby coaches.
If I have to try to explain cricket to a American I usually start off with “well, it’s just like baseball except …”:
– there’s only 1 or 2 innings, not 9
– you keep batting until you’re out, not in rotation
– the innings is over when you’re all (but one) out
– two bases instead of four, and one coindices with the pitcher’s mound
– wickets instead of a strike zone
– etc
Pretty much all the ways to get out are the same, and even things such an 6s and automatic home runs pretty much coincide.
The hard thing to explain is LBW. Probably because it’s just as fuzzy and subjective as the baseball strike zone.
But I think the thing that Americans *really* can’t understand is this: that you can play a game for five long days and then NOT HAVE A WINNER. Americans simply *must* have a winner.
Not that the soccer crowd are any better these days, with so many top matches scoreless draws decided by penalty shootouts.
Brian. Are you making ironic isolationist remarks on behalf of the USA?
This is sport my old son!
This isn’t life and death
It’s more serious than that!
“NFL footy” developed from the rules established for a series of games played between Harvard and McGill Universities, c.1870. The rules were largely based on McGill’s version of football, which was rugby based.
Brian, is this a place I can ask? I’ve looked around the internet and been surprisingly unable to find comprehensible descriptions of how cricket is played.
Maybe you or Bruce or someone can explain.
Starting with Bruce’s explanation,
an inning is 3 outs in baseball. What is it in cricket? Is it the number of players on the team, minus one? How many players are on a team and who is the minus one?
You mean you keep batting until the pitcher knocks off those little wooden candy bars?
‘innings’ is singular as well as plural?
What are the bases for? What does the batter do after he hits the ball. How can he keep batting if he’s running around, er… back and forth between, the bases?
That part I understand. It is a really good idea. We should have kept it in baseball.
And where does the ball go, who picks it up or catches it and what do they do with it?
If this is not the place to ask cricket questions, just say “off topic”. But since coming to Samizdata I hear alot of cricket talk and would like to understand better. It seems like an interesting sport and I miss what baseball used to be.
Mid, Cricket is a simple game, with hardly any rules at all.
It consists of two teams of eleven players with a ball, bats and two wickets, a chain apart.
So when you are in you are in, but when all ten of you are out,
the other side is in.
Then when the other side is back in, it rains…
Innings is indeed singular as well as plural.
An innings starts with two batsmen (the openers) in the middle, one in front of each wicket. The bowler bowls to a batsman. If the batsman hits the ball, he doesn’t have to do anything. (Running is optional). If the batsman does not hit the ball and the ball misses the wicket, he doesn’t have to do anything either. If the batsman hits the ball far enough that he and the other batsman can swap ends before the ball is brought back to the wicket by the fieldsmen, then the batsmen take a run by swapping ends. If there is time to swap ends twice, two runs. If there is time to swap ends three times, three runs. If the ball is hit to the boundary of the ground, four runs. If the ball is hit to the boundary without bouncing, six runs. If the batsman have scored an odd number of runs, then the other batsman will get to face the next ball. If an even number, then the same once faces the next ball. When runs are scored, the same batsmen continue batting (unlike in baseball, where the next man takes his turn). After every six balls – an over – the bowling switches ends, so even if there are no runs scored, both batsmen will face the bowling some of the time.
There are various ways of being out. As has been mentioned, these are much the same as in baseball. Caught out is exactly the same as baseball. Run out is when the fieldsmen get the ball back to the wicket before a run is completed. Bowled is when the batsman misses the ball and the ball hits the wicket. Leg before wicket is when the batsman misses the ball and the ball hits the batsman’s leg when it would have hit the wicket had his leg not been in the way.
When a batsman is out, the next player on the batting order comes in to bat. This continues until the entire side (eleven men) have batted, and ten of them are out. The eleventh man has no remaining partners. His innings is over too when ten men are out, but he is said to be “not out”, and the end of his innings does not count towards his average.
A team innings can take a long time (as much as two days). In a test match, each side will have two innings and once these are over the side with the most runs wins. If one side has completed its two innings and the other has scored more runs than the first side, the game is over and the second side does not need to finish its innings or even to play its second innings at all. (Baseball is like this too. The bottom of the ninth is not played or finishes early once the result is certain).
However, if a result has not been achieved in five days, the game is declared a draw, regardless of the state of the match. An odd fact is that in cricket a “draw” and a “tie” are different things, although in both cases there is no winner. A draw is when the teams have run out of time with neither side winning. A tie is when all innings are over and both sides have the same number of runs. (Draws happen frequently. Ties happen very occasionally and matches in which they do tend to be greatly celebrated. In test cricket, there hasn’t been one since 1987).
I am sure that is clear as mud.
Actually, that was much clearer than I would have thought possible. A very good explanation. I have very few follow-up questions and they are mostly minor ones.
Leg over wicket, who decides if it would have hit the wicket?
A ball is one what we call pitch?
When you say switch ends, do you mean the bowler goes to the other end? Or the batsmen?
So batsman work in pairs but get out and replaced one at a time? I think this is evident from the not-out at the end of the game. A batsman who starts a game (an opener?) he can last to also be a not-out?
If the ball is hit to the boundary (4 runs?) can the batsman also take runs by swapping ends? and get 6 or 7 runs? Or does it go out of bounds like a baseball ground rule double a so the number of runs is fixed? (As is the number of bases in a ground rule double.)
Do the fieldsman throw the ball back to the wicket through relays or do they have to run it back?
Are there any rules for the bowler besides hitting the wicket? Does he also field hits? Does he have marks to throw from? Are there rules to prevent him from throwing at the batsman on purpose (or even by accident)? That happens in baseball more than we would like. I have an x-brother in law who was a professional pitcher and it bothered me that he said that the pitcher ‘owned’ the outside of the plate. Meaning pitchers would throw at batters to keep them standing farther away from the plate.
Thank you for a very clear explanation. If it’s like baseball, (I presume it is in this regard) you can learn the rules in a single game, and the game in a single life time, if your a quick learner.
I think Cricket could become popular in the US based on a couple of observations.
1. You don’t have to wear shorts.
2. You can drink beer and still play.
Leg over wicket!!
The batsman’s Holding
The Bowler’s Willey
Are you sure you dont know more about this game than you’re letting on
Mid? 🙂
Leg Before Wicket. The umpire who is standing at the bowler’s end (i.e. behind the wicket where the batsman who is not facing the current ball is). There is a second umpire, who stands at the other end, but somewhat to the side of the line of bowling.
In this context, yes.
The ball is thrown to the other end, where a different bowler bowls the next over. A bowler can not bowl consecutive overs, but can stop bowling at the end of any over, then start bowling again (from either end).
Yes, and yes. Both batsmen can even ‘play through’ to the end of the innings (if they are lucky), New Zealand did this to Australia a couple of weeks ago.
Fixed runs, except when the fielding (non-batting) side has made one of a number of rare errors.
Nearly always thrown, and relays are not required much of the time.
Yes, notably the manner of throwing (arm must be straight), and the equivalent of a strike zone.
Yes.
He must bowl from behind “the crease” (a line which is close to the wickets themselves (“stumps”)). The creases (one at each end) also serve as the border of the ‘bases’ the batters run between.
More discourage than prevent, but yes.
I guess it’s been a while since either Michael Holding or Peter Willey has played…
Ah yes. ‘Leg over’ would be part of the punchline to a joke RAB told me. |-)
What is an over?
How can both batsman play through? I thought one had to be out for a new one to bat.
By strike zone do you mean more than the stumps? Is there a general area the ball has to be in even if it misses?
Do the batsman just have to cross the crease or do they have to touch the stump. LIke in baseball, you have to touch the bag and stay touching it to be safe.
In a close call between the runner and a thrown back ball, what typically happens. For example, in baseball an umpire decides whether the fielder with the ball was touching the plate before the runner touched it. Usually the fielder stands with his foot on the plate and the umpire decides if the ball hit the glove before the foot hit the bag.
And, lastly, is there streaming audio and/or video readily available online? I used to really like hearing the sound of a baseball game while I worked. Now, I don’t much care for the games the way they are played now, and they don’t play in the day much any more anyway.
And thank you guys all for patience. I have actually been wondering about cricket for a while.
Six balls (pitches) bowled in succession from one end (by the same bowler).
There are two opening batsmen, and indeed two batsmen on the field at any time. You don’t have to face the very first ball bowled in order to “play through”, just be one of the two opening batsmen.
In the context I used it, yes. If you bowl a ball that it is not practical for the batsman to hit, this is called a ‘wide’. The batting team is given a ‘run’ (scoring point), and an extra ball must be bowled in the over – so a notional six ball over may actually involve 7+ balls being bowled if the bowler is especially wayward. Likewise if fielders are in incorrect positions when the ball is bowled (most commonly the bowler ‘oversteps his mark’ and is too close to the batter) it is a ‘no-ball’, meaning an extra ball and at least one run.
The bat (held by the batsman) must have crossed the crease before the bails (on top of the stumps) are removed by the ball (which is often in the hands of a fielder at the time, but can be thrown).
The umpire at that end makes a call on whether the bat touched the crease before the bails were knocked off by the ball. In televised games, an off-field umpire can be requested to watch replays by an on-field umpire.
Others can answer this better than I can.
To whatever extent this story is true, I’d like to thank the Imperial Cricket Conference for sparing us cricket and allowing us baseball. We hope our inolvement in the two world wars is enough to repay the debt.
Radio NZ have a rolling week of sports radio online So there is still the NZ vs Australia one day international match from last Tuesday (for the next 24 hours anyway…)
Go to:
http://www.radiosport.co.nz/AudioBank/WeekOnDemand/Default.aspx
Select Tuesday and Midday to Midnight.
The game starts in the 14:00-14:15 segment:
http://www.radiosport.co.nz/ThisWeek/31400.wma
Unfortunately you’ll have to choose a new file every quarter of an hour 🙁
Soccer is most certainly not something being imposed on Americans by effete elites. Soccer has a long, rich American tradition. In fact, the first intercollegiate football game in American history was a soccer match with Aussie Rules marks (Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4). It occurred in 1869.
Soccer is currently the biggest particiption sport in the country for both boys and girls. Millions of kids step onto the pitch to play, so much so that the term “soccer mom” has entered the American lexicon to refer to an upper-middle class suburban mother.
MLS, while nothing like La Liga or the EPL, is about to break even and has probably been the second-best managed professional sports league in the country over the past decade (no league anywhere touches the American NFL for intelligent management). Soccer-specific stadiums have been built for several of the teams, and they routinely sell out or come close (~20,000). MLS is now being shown on a national network in a Game of the Week format, and Cable/Pay TV will show dozens more.
And, of course, the American women’s football team is the best in the world and it’s not close.
Americans who think soccer isn’t American or manly are imbeciles.
– Josh, impatiently awaiting a Philadelphia MLS team
>Now why, I wonder
>Changing the focus slightly here
>Why was not Hurling instead of ice hockey, or Gaelic >football a more likely candidate for national >supremacy, than NFL Football, or basketball,
>Given the Irish immigrants in the USA , I mean. Just >asking.
I was actually looking some of this stuff up last week. Wikipedia has some good articles on (American)football/(Rest of the World)football and Cricket/Baseball. Baseball is apparently based on Rounders.
see this article for baseball, softball, cricket, etc.
and this one for a start on the football.
Interesting that Wild Pegasus felt the need to be socially progressive and love Association Football – soccer, even though (as we were informed above) even the “soccer moms” have lost interest in it. I would not have thought that knowledge of the off side rule is a vital part of left libertarianism – but it seems it is.
By the way Australian Rules Football (the bounce) is nothing like soccer, it is a different game. Rather more like rugby or American Football (in the days before helmets and virtually unlimited subsititution).
On cricket – yes Philadelphia remained a major place for it. It was thought of a snobish game by some (but then Philadelphia had the reputation for being a centre of respectable Republican familes of good fortune), but it was no more snobish than in England – with the Gentleman and Players rule.
Perhaps the United States lacked a strong tradition of village cricket. In England village cricket cut across class lines – no one was paid, and as there was only a limited number of people to choose from noone could be left out on grounds of social standing.
It would have been daft to say “I am not playing with him, he is a farm labourer” when there was the village down the road to beat.
Okay, I think I almost got this. (Bruce’s link is on audio as I type, thanks Bruce) Just a couple of more questions I hope.
I guess this sentence is confusing me:
It sounds like they did it in the same innings. But doesn’t an innings require rotating through a side?
Do fielders run back and forth every over? Or are there duplicates at the other end? I hope I’m using the terms correctly.
Brian, thank you for this thread. I am a little surprised to find I’m not the only American interested in cricket. But unless baseball sees some changes … I personally want to see calling of strikes and balls automated. The integrity of the game is compromised and promises to do better just don’t cut it any more. It’s going to take a automated pitch calling system and instant replay reviews to get me back.
It was a One Day game, so one innings per side. The Australians batted first, and got a poor score (around 145). The two NZ opening batsmen reached the Aussie score with neither of them going out, at which point the game ended (as the Aussies had no more scoring opportunities).
There is one specialist fielder, the wicket keeper. Like the catcher, he has additional equipment (leg pads, and gloves). He changes ends each over so he is behind the wickets (and batsman) being bowled to. Besides whoever is bowling the current over, there are 9 fielders, who stand in a great variety of positions. Their exact locations change every over, and often every ball (depending on many factors), as the fielding side adjusts to the game situation.
Australian Rules Football (the bounce) is nothing like soccer
Where did I say that it was? I said the first American intercollegiate football game was basically a soccer match with Aussie Rules marks. A mark is a free kick given to someone who catches a kicked ball that has travelled more than 15 meters. Early forms of soccer often incorporated the mark rule, although it was finally dropped from the Laws of the Game. It remains in Aussie Rules.
It is odd indeed that you tagged soccer “socially progressive”, considering how often it is associated with violence, fascism, nationalism, and the state – essentially the province of the right. For me, it’s just a great game.
– Josh
Thank you all very much. I have bookmarked this thread into my permanent sports rules archives so I can go back regularly to try to figure out what is going on.
Got it.
Now with the help of a glossary like this one, I think I can work out the rest. I’ve already looked up non-striker and crowd catch.
Oops, one more. If the ball hits the striker and it is not ruled to be leg er.., before wicket, nothing happens? Is that why the padding?
I like the sound and cadence of the game and game callers. It is very much like the lazy afternoon baseball games I used to listen to. Those fifteen minute lumps are a bit tedious, if you hear of any uninterupted ones … Maybe it’s a file size thing.
Thanks Errol, Brian, Bruce and all.
It is possible to score runs off a ball that hits the batsman (and not the bat), if the fielding side is unlucky or especially bad. These runs (“leg byes”) count for the team total, but are not credited to the batsman. The ball hitting the padded part of the batsman is quite common, and there are rules that discourage bowling in such a way that the batsman is likely to get hit somewhere unprotected (or on the head).
Besides audio, you can also follow major games at http://www.cricinfo.com/. They do a running typed commentary – “Live Score”.
Midwesterner, ragging on umpires for their inconsistency is part of the game of baseball.
Cricket will never catch on in the U.S. until the players start taking steroids.
Vanya, if I want to watched a rigged ‘sport’, there are plenty of other choices.
It is not their inconsistency that upsets me. It is their consistently preferential calls.
Maybe cricket won’t catch on with your crowd, but I’m thinking maybe that’s a good thing. Used to be we watched baseball to see some of the great manager’s brilliant tactics, not the great musclemens’ belligerant tantrums.
Re Cricket, according to legend General Washington participated in a game at Valley Forge. BTW I recently realized and interesting fact about US and Anglosphere history Washington receved his commision as Commander and Chief from the continental congress on June 15, Magna Charta Day
My tip for the world cup: South Africa
Unless they do something pretty drastic, it’s going to be 1992 all over again for Australia
Cricket is the only thing I miss after emigrating from South Africa to the US.
Okay, and Castle Lager, the world’s best lager. (Sorry, but the competition isn’t even close.)
How much do I miss cricket? The last Test match I watched live featured players like Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Ian Chappell and Bill Lawry.
Other contemporaneous notes:
Tony Greig was still playing for Eastern Province as a decent but not spectacular cricketer.
Clive Rice (future Notts and SA captain) was still a prefect at my high school.
I played hockey against Henry Fotheringham (who replaced Barry Richards as S. Africa’s opening batsman when Richards retired) and Geoff Wegerle (who played football in the pre-EPL First Division).
A couple of years later, I had a tryout for a pro football team (Highlands Park). I never made it, but a younger kid was thought to have a lot of promise. His name? Gary Bailey, and he later played goalie for Man U.
Fuck me, I’m getting old.
Violence, and other disgusting behaviour being associated (rightly or wrongly) with Association Football.
That is exactly what makes it “socially progressive” Josh. Of course racialism is no longer considered socially progressive (although it used to be), but the rest of it still is.
Because the game (again rightly or wrongly) is associated with a rejection of high culture and an acceptance of (supposedly) working class “community values” – worthy of support by politicians, the state and other such.
The mistake that left libertarianism makes is that he fails to see that “socially progressive” is just another term for statist. It “takes a village” to raise a child (rather than the parents) for example. With “community” not meaning the web of voluntary interactions of civil society, but (to the progressive) meaning the public power – the state.
The left does not seek to destroy all independent insitutions (such as the family, traditional churches and so on) as a means to simply to create isolated “atomised individuals” without any independent associations or traditional values. No the destruction of civil society is in order (to the socially progressive) to clear away obsticles to the establisment of a new order – a new “society” (in the sense of planned society) based on progressive principles.
The left (or at least not their leaders) are not about mindless destruction – they have a purpose an “agenda” if you will.
For example, the A.C.L.U. – an organization set up by Marxists in the 1920’s, whose leadership has been laughing (behind their hands) at those who hold them to be devoted to freedom, ever since. “But they even support the free speech of racists” – of course they do (that is the game), but they do not (for example) support the free speech of people (conservatives or libertarians) who might really be a theat to the progressive agenda (in situations where this speech would count – such as schools and court rooms)
Association football is supported partly because it is associated (again rightly or wrongly) with hispanic immigrants (and they are supported because, it is hoped, they will lead to an expansion of the Welfare State, via the various benefits that they demand or can be demanded on their behalf, and to Latin American style class war politics).
The left are quite open about this – have a look at some of the films Hollywood has made about Latin America over the last few decades, they (and their friends in the media and academia) would love to have this sort of politics in the United States.
The other reason that Association Football is supported is because it is internationalist – it is part of making the United States “just another country”, part of the “international community” i.e. under world government structures (treaties and other such).
And, of course, there is the feminist angle. But that is too boring to write about.
As for Association Football being a great game.
It is hard for me to judge, as it is difficult to seperate the game from the cultural baggage it has in modern Britain.
Also (to lay the personal stuff on the table) I was useless at the game at school – but then I was useless at all team sports (and I do not despise rugby, cricket and so on). In fact the only sport I was ever any good at was shooting – something I was involved in as an undergraduate (many years ago) rather than at school.
Ah!
The great enigma of what passes for sport in America!
When I lived in Texas, about 1996ish, a relative, by marriage, had a Tshirt proclaiming that Houston whatevers, were the world champions at basketball. Then there is the World Series of baseball.
The world champions of knurdling come from Wickham on the Wold in Cornwall. This is much more interesting and receives equal world interest to the aforementioned.
It is all very sad really. The articles on cricket which I have read on this site,are quite interesting. The fact of the matter is that the USA provided the first cricket team to tour the West Indies.
It is quite clear that somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, America dropped out of real sport.
Americans go to the game as others go to the theatre or the movies and who can blame them?
Nothing to get passionate or excited about is there. Height freaks play a derivation of the girls game of netball and are termed ‘athletes’. Baseball is also a derivation of a girls game – rounders,but at least some skill is required here,although my sojourn to the Astrodome to watch the Astros and the Mets did not bear this out, as nobody hit the ball by the ‘ top of the ninth.
A lot of big tough guys strut their stuff in American Football. Unfortunately the game is just a series of ‘ time outs’ and a lot of pushing and shoving not quite as fierce as the ladies at the January sales. Scores of players are rotated with special teams to try to keep things interesting. The average player plays for less than two minutes but the game lasts three to four hours. You can easily understand how fit and athletic the players have to be to endure such a hard game and why the adoring public approve of their millionaire paychecks.
In short, these games are complete rubbish sold to the most gullible audience in the world.
A great pity. No American has the opportunity to enjoy the pride and the thrill the fans in Argentina, Australia,Brazil, England, France, Germany India,Italy,
New Zealand and Sri Lanka have experienced on becoming true World Champions in Cricket, Football or Rugby.
Still – only in America eh!