World Series

Remove all ads!

I should start by saying that maybe the Cardinals are a lot better than I thought. I figured they'd get swept in the Series again this year.

But the real point of what I wanted to bring up is I cannot recall another WS that I had so little interest in. I watched a bit of it last night because there was nothing good on TV, but I'm not making a point to watch the games. Teams like the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers are great for ratings, because these teams elicit strong emotions among baseball fans (they are all "love them or hate them" franchises). It seems like a lot of people whose teams don't make the WS will still watch to root against the aforementioned teams, with the Yankees clearly at the top of the list.

But to me this is a very bleh series. I'm not a fan of either the Tigers or the Cardinals, but I don't have any reason to dislike either of the teams either. Furthermore, there is exactly one super star on the two teams combined (Puljos), and that probably hurts the draw as well. I guess the point I'm making is I know a couple of people who root for either the Cardinals or Tigers, and they watch the games. However, the vast majority of people aren't fans of either team, and for the most part, they are completely disinterested in the WS. Does this hold true in other areas of the country, or is this the so-called "east coast bias" at work.

 

US or N. American Series you mean

 

is there actually any none US teams playing in the world series?

 

eh, I can't add a whole lot to this. I live in Missouri, so everyone but me is watching the games lol.

 

Don't get started on this again Barmy. Yes, yes, yes, there's tons of other people playing baseball these days. And yes, they shouldn't call the baseball champ "world champions". Actually though, now that you mention it, baseball may the most vain of all the American sports - they actually put "world" in the title of their championship game. The others are at least a bit more discretionary. I mean Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Finals and NBA Finals don't automatically claim it's over the whole world, while baseball does.

eh? You got an extra word in there somewhere, and it's either the word "any" or "none" and so to answer your question it could be either yes or no depending on which word you don't want.

 

The sentence made perfect sense to me mate. 'Non-US'... yeah?

Baseball schmaseball !

 

I have been watching some baseball recently as it has been on TV here for some reason. I have found it to be quite fascinating, even though, like cricket, virtually nothing happens for long stretches of the game, and the whole sport is stacked in favour of the fielding team. I can see that all the stats could become addictive. I just wish they didn't all wear those girly gloves to catch the ball (other than the backstop guy - he needs one for sure).

 

Of course. If you said, non-US teams I would have understood, and yes by substituting non for none, the sentence now makes sense. And to answer your question, since the only non-U.S. team in MLB is Toronto, and they didn't make it, it's "no".

Baseball is one of the most statistically dependent games out there, and yes, many people love the game for that reason alone. And though my knowledge of cricket is extremely limited, I was under the impression that it was another game that was heavily oriented towards numbers and statistics. I can easily see how someone who liked cricket could become interested in baseball, and vice versa (although a baseball game is much shorter in duration).

That's the catcher. It should be noted that the speed at which the ball leaves the bat is usually pretty darn close to the speed of the incoming pitch. So I'd say they would all need gloves for sure. Just like it would be no fun for a catcher to try to bare hand a 90-mph fastball, if the batter hits a line drive, you'd have fielders trying to bare hand catch a ball travelling 90-mph too. Granted, for soft grounders and pop-ups, you don't need the glove, but you can't guarantee those will be the only types of balls hit.

 

But cricketers don't wear gloves to catch the ball (cept the wicketkeeper) and that ball travels pretty damn quickly and is very, very hard and heavy...
Catching a cricket ball hurts at the best of times, but if you don't get it just right, it bloody hammers . Baseball players are just jessies!

 

How come cricketers don't need big gloves then? A cricket ball is every bit as hard as a baseball and you get guys fielding only a few feet away from the batsman. In any case, the outfielders sure don't need gloves to catch those big hits.

Yeah, plenty of stats in cricket. In last night's game, Stephen Fleming broke the record for most one day games as captain, Shane Bond maintained his record of lowest number of runs conceded per wicket taken of any bowler in international history, and Nathan Astle fell short of reaching 7,000 career runs (he's still stuck on 6961).

 

I wish Bondy would get a long run in the side so that (arguably) undeserved record can get a bit of a stretching...

 

So do I!!!!

Um, to bring this back on topic, I hope he plays as many games as that Ripken baseball guy did.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a few cricket World XI's but I don't think a whole thread on it would get many replies... fancy replying in the random sports thing with yours?

 

Yeah, I'd love to catch a ball hit off the bat at 100-120 mph, which gets to the short stop in under a second.

As for the World Series, who cares? Its not a good rivalry, neither of the teams are that special (well, Tigers are a cinderella team, sure, but still), and even though I hate the Cards, I am not a fan of the Tigers...

 

Try copping a hit from a cricket ball when someone smacks it at you when you're stood at silly point or short leg... little bit more painful I think and they need no silly gloves!

 

LOL @dmc I considered breaking into that babbling post but didn't dare

I don't really care which team wins either. But I did want to see how Chris Carpenter performed. I'm in BC so the baseball I ever see on TV is either the Blue Jays or the Mariners. So I cheer for ex-Blue Jays like Carpenter (and Delgado and Shawn Green before that). Depending on how long this series lasts, that could have been the last I'll see of Carpenter this year.

On the other side of the coin, I'd like to see Ivan Rodrigez succeed. I like his intentions about going to small market teams and bringing them the championship. (I think he joined the Marlins and the Tigers when both teams were in really bad shape and turned both around.) That's probably the anti-Yankee mentality cropping up

That's about it, for choosing sides. And you can see, what little there is to like is balanced out for me. So.. bleh! Let's just hope for some good baseball action like pitching duels, pitcher/hitter mind games, and diving catches.

 

First, There is one Non US team in Major League Baseball. JSBB and I have discussed them in RSBP during the season. They are based in Toronto. They won the World Series in their only appearances (1992 and 1993). Unfortunately, they are in the same division as the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, and thus struggle to make the post season due to a smaller payroll. I think the tenative agreement in MLB should have had a Salary cap because the 200 million dollar payroll for the Yankees is ridiculous, and sabotages the other four teams in their division, three of whom have more reasonable payrolls.

I'm Glad that the Yankees lost the first round, and for that I feel I owe the Tigers a debt of gratitude. I've adopted them until next spring...

 

As a Mets fan, I lost all interest when we lost, I normally watch as much as I can but this year have had no interest. And I think the reason is the blandness of the 2 teams in the series. Normally when the series arrives I'm rooting for the underdog to beat the Yankees, but they went out in the first round haha.

As for the Blue Jays they will always have a smaller payroll than teams like the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox simply because they don't have the money in coming that those teams/cities do. Which really makes it the more astonishing (and validation of the American Dream) that they won the World Series back-to-back.

 

Huh? True, he went with two teams (Tigers and Marlins) that were down on their luck at the time, but I think with you attributing more benevolent attributes to Rodrigez than he deserves. Those teams may have been down, but they also offerred him more money than other teams. So it could be argued that he went for the biggest money.

While I agree in principle with this sentiment, the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets have something else in common other than inflated pay rolls - they all turn a profit. Some of this is obviously due to the market they play in - Boston and New York are two of the biggest cities in the U.S. (NYC is *the* biggest and I think Boston is 3rd, behind NYC and LA). Another big factor is that while football is the most popular sport in the U.S., Boston and NYC are still "baseball towns". However, I think that part of the reason that these teams manage to turn a profit is they put competitive teams on the field year after year, and so fans are more willing to spend their money to show up for games.