Facinating American Sports

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I saw the European soccer thread (by the way, Soccer is the only game played world wide, not a purely European following), and instead of answering the question, I decided to pose a question of my own. Why are Americans facinsated with a sport that only they understand. Approach anyone else with the rules of Grid Iron and they will look at you blankly. Why is it that millions of Americans world wide, no wait, only in America, watch a 3 hour long event they call the superbowl? What is the facination with men running into each other, each wearing the sporting equivilant of plate mail armour, and then throwing a ball forward? Why is there a world series for baseball in America in which only American teams compete? Seems pretty illogical...

 

I think they play baseball in Cuba too.

 

They even play it here. The Dutch team beat the Cubans only a week or two ago!
And I think American Football is a pretty cool sport.

 

That's a lot of questions for something so simple to answer. Why ? Because people enjoy sports, it's as simple as that.

Why do Australians enjoy Aussie rules ? I'm sure you think that's a very stupid question.

Yeah, they play baseball in Cuba, but there's no Cuban MLB team. There are however two teams in Canada, the Montreal Expo's and the Toronto Bluejay's, and the last time i checked, Canada wasn't part of the US.

 

bloody hell guys, nobody forget the Japanese baseball leagues, Baseball is huge over there, absolutely huge.

 

Not as huge as in the US. And there isn't a single Japanese baseballplayer who wouldn't want to be a part of the MLB. That's the highest goal for every baseballplayer. To say it with Sinatra's words: if i can make it there, i'll make it anywhere.

 

And most of the "American" baseball teams (Canadian too) are made up entirely of people from Mexico, South America, the Caribbean etc. Canada has lots of baseball teams other than the two major league ones - the smaller number of major league teams compared with the US is a reflection on relative population sizes, not relative interest in baseball. In Winnipeg where I went to college I used to attend Goldeye games.

I love baseball. It's the only team sport I "get", where I feel the drama of it and get emotional enough to yell at players. (Okay it's usually "Nice ass!" but still. ) I used to play on a girls' hockey team, in England, but I can't get into watching ice hockey. Where spectator sports are concerned, baseball is my game. I love baseball movies too. Especially Bull Durham, Stealing Home, and A League of Their Own. ("There's no crying in baseball!")

My first date with the man I ended up marrying was to a Texas Rangers game so they're my favorite baseball team now.

 

Oh, yeah. Actually Americans are crazy about football (soccer). Not all over the continent, but in huge areas. Just the notion, football (soccer) is an european sport is pretty weird, concerning that they are crazy about it in the Americas.

 

It's not JUST the Americans who are crazy about American Football though. Canada has its own "American" Football league: the CFL. You could argue there's only about 8 teams, but still... the teams are spread from the west coast to the east coast, which shows there is nation wide support for this sport. It also shows a demand for such professional competetion.

I tend to place the sport of rugby in the same category as American football. To address the original post, there are countries all over the world that are fascinated by rugby. And in that game, the passes are backwards and the ball must be carried over the touchdown line (ignoring punting strategies that are almost equivalent in both sports)... which I speculate would lead to even more men running into each other. So it's not just the Americans who enjoy this...

 

Rodeo anyone? The kind of sport that you get on a horse/bull's back and let the animal ride you.

Monster truck. The kind of sport that you drive a small truck with huge wheels and see how much junk you can crush.

Roller blade. They made a league, put it on national TV, add some WWE (formerly known as WWF) style drama and many people seems to like it. It's just a competition of people skating around and bash each other.

Galdiator (not Roman style). Mini obstacle course with galdiators within to further obstacle the process.

My theories (without any justification)
- It's all about the American pride thing. They want to stay different, regardless of the world's course. Something like when the world is using meter they caged in their obsession with feet.
- It's all about the American ignorance thing. We all know how ignorace average Americans are. They have no sense about how small is the world. Without giving a chance to the world, they already concluded that if it's not American, it is not good.

 

Oh, i forgot to mention that the NFL set up a league in Europe as well, it's called the World league, and the finals is named "the worldbowl".

A lot of todays NFL superstars started their careers in the Worldleague with teams as the Amsterdam Admirals, the London Monarchs, the Barcelona Dragons, the Frankfurt Galaxy, or the Dusseldorf Rheinfire. It's not a huge league yet, but it's gaining popularity every year. It's also expanding every year, so the league is slowly growing bigger. A lot of US college players see this league as an excellent doorway to a lucrative NFL contract.

I've been to a few "Admirals" games in their first year, the year they made it to the Worldbowl, but lost the finals unfortunately. I enjoy watching the game, but it's the place where they play that makes my stomach turn. It's the Amsterdam Arena, home of Ajax. And that's just disgusting.

Edit:

@ TeekC

I'm not sure here dude, but i'd say your last post comes dangerously close to flamebaiting. Once again someone manages to derail a "normal" thread into US bashing. And you dare call them ignorant ? Take a good look in the mirror every now and then, it wouldn't harm you.

 

i am not saying all Americans are ignorance but average Americans are.

i am studying in Ames, IA now and my former roomate is Amercian. Most of the people i encountered has no idea what is the world like. My former roomate and his friends cannot differentiate between random meaningless character from Japanese character. They ask me about the characters appeared in the Windtalker Zelda game if they are Japanese. The people i met everyday cannot differentiate between a Chinese and a Korean. "They are all the same", they said. When i gave them my origins, "Malaysia? where is that?" they said. The extreme response was "Is it beside South Korea?" To think these people are suppose to be university students. My even former roommate when i was in Fargo, ND, didn't even know that American invaded China after the Opium War when he claimed to be an American hirstory sepcialist.

How can i, under these encounters, not consider average Americans to be ignorance?

 

Well, i'm sure you'll find that kind of people in Europe and Asia as well, not to mention Africa, where a good education is hard to find. I just don't understand why a thread about American sports has to turn into American Ignorance. Sure, there are ignorant people in the US, but if you believe people on other continents are all bright masterminds, you are totally wrong.

 

Baseball and football.
Baseball. Although fun, I can name a hundred sports more fun than baseball. Nothing against it, however. Every sport is good. Football(soccer), however, is the best.


The NFL.
Football (not soccer) is a form of rugby, but a for where the players have to wear armour (!!!) to play rugby. And then somebody says the sport is brutal. Tell some Irish rugby player football is rough, and he'll laugh at ya!

 

A quick search reveals that rugby and football are about equal in injuries while soccer has more injuries. Football on the other hand has the most serious injuries, at least in my book, with the most recent data I saw revealing 17 deaths during the football season in the US which was a decline for the year. I consider death to be more serious than a knee injury. Depending on the year, soccer and football switch off on 'winning' the award for most season and career ending injuries.

BTW, often death results in football as a result of 'spearing' which is encouraged by all of that 'armor' which allows people to hit harder.

In short, not sure what qualifies as the roughest but being dismissive when you're completely unfamiliar might be premature.

[ July 06, 2003, 11:10: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

I don't understand the clashing into eachother in plate mail either...infact, I don't like sports much at all....but I'm a complete misfit.

 

There are two sports I really like: Golf and baseball, especially on TV. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep at night. But all I have to do is tune into a golf or baseball game on TV and I'm asleep in nothing flat. Works everytime. Who says sports isn't good for anything? Can't wait for the Olympics, I need to catch up on some extra sleep.

 

Saw an 'Outside the Lines' episode about this today. 10% of Major League ball players are black (actually black American) while 23% of Major League ball players are Latin American. The data comes from a study by the Univ of Central Florida. The story was about the decline of interest in baseball by black Americans. Two decades ago 25% of players were black American and no World Series team had fewer than 10. Today no team has more than 4 (did they mean no WS team, did they mean all of em, not sure?) Now, keep in mind there are black Latin players who they grouped in with other Latin players simply because they were focusing on black America.

But, if 23% are Latin and 10% black American then I guess 2/3 of the players are something else. There is a sprinkling of Asian players (Japan, S. Korea spring to mind) and I'm sure there are others from other nations though no one springs to mind at the moment. Most baseball players are white Americans at this time though. Here is something staggering to me: there are only 5 black Major League pitchers.

 

Well, then they're probably not good enough, simple. If there were more talented black pitchers, we would see them in the MLB. They probably prefer batting over pitching. Or maybe they're losing interrest in baseball, and stick with basketball instead. Who knows ?

 

No, it's not that blacks don't have the talent to become pitchers. It is because there is a decreasing interest by black people in the US in baseball and they are participating in football and basketball. They talked about marketing, etc.