Batting for baseball

Two weeks ago, my blogging colleague Samarth Shah dedicated a post to the Woodley fields in Los Angeles. But it was a line in the post that had nothing to do with Woodley that solicited the most responses.

“Most cricket grounds in the USA are shared with amateur soccer or baseball clubs,” wrote Shah. “Those wusses - especially at the amateur level - want thick grass in the outfield.”

Yesterday, I was listening to the WEPN 1050-AM ESPN Radio station in my car, the same station that carries World Series broadcasts between the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers, when I heard an ad come across the airwaves from the Barbados Tourism Board. In the spot, a voice waxes poetic about Kensington Oval and how it has “played host to some of the world’s greatest bowlers, batsmen, fielders and allrounders, some who might be considered on par with even baseball’s best players.”

“But then again,” the voice crows, “when was the last time you ever saw a baseball player score 100 runs in one game?”

Reading and hearing things like this, it’s not surprising to me why my countrymen don’t get interested in cricket. By and large, the cricket-loving public has a condescending attitude towards Americans and baseball. Cricket is seen as a vintage wine and baseball just a cheap beer. Americans don’t understand the game because it’s just too complicated. We aren’t smart enough and don’t have the patience to appreciate all of its nuances.

However, there is also the American side of the argument, which is to say, there is no argument. Baseball is the best. It’s the national pastime. Baseball players chew tobacco, cricketers drink tea. Cricket can’t be a real sport if it’s played by men wearing sweaters.

At this stage, it’s as if the cricket fan feels like his manhood is being challenged almost to the point that he’s ready to drop his pants and whip it out for a measuring contest to see who’s bigger. He stops short of doing that though and instead tries to engage the baseball fan in a dialogue to defend cricket’s honour.

Cricket fan: No, cricket is the best!

Baseball fan: Actually, baseball is. The New York Yankees have won the World Series 27 times and they’re the most recognizable sports franchise brand in the world.

Cricket fan: No, cricket is! Because Sachin Tendulkar plays cricket and he is God!

Baseball fan: Well then how come I’ve never seen him anywhere on television?

Cricket fan: Um… er… because all TV networks in America are run by atheists!

The baseball fan looks at the cricket fan like he needs to be placed in a mental asylum, because this man clearly cannot be reasoned with and is possibly psychotic, and just walks away. In the cricket fan’s mind, he sees the baseball fan leaving and declares it a confirmation of cricket’s superiority, but in reality nothing has been resolved.

One reason Americans might not feel motivated to care an awful lot about cricket is that American athletes get paid way more than any cricketer. On Forbes’ 2010 list of The World’s 50 Top-earning Athletes, 32 out of the 50 were Americans and four of the 18 foreigners were plying their trades in American professional leagues: David Beckham, Yao Ming, Ichiro Suzuki and Dirk Nowitzki.

Besides Ichiro, three other baseball players made the list: CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter with all three playing for the Yankees. On the other hand, there are zero cricketers on this list. Perhaps this has contributed to the confusion about cricket in this country. Why are people so desperate to watch and play the game when the vast majority of its stars are poor in comparison to athletes in American sports?

Steve Waugh scored more than 10,000 runs in Test cricket and has the greatest winning percentage for any player who captained his team in 25 or more Tests. Graeme Lloyd was another Australian who worked as a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen and won two World Series titles with the Yankees during a modest 11-year career in MLB from 1993-2003, the time that spans the best years of Waugh’s 20-year international career. But it’s estimated that Lloyd made close to $13 million dollars in salary, something Waugh probably would have dreamed of.

Money talks and the fact that the franchise model has only existed in cricket since 2008 means cricketers have never earned much through playing and have relied on book deals, newspaper columns and other endorsements to supplement their income. But the IPL has been working around the clock to play catch up to the value of American sports teams.

Cricket owes baseball for bringing up its fielding standards as well. Mike Young was a middle of the road coach in baseball. I doubt most baseball fans in the USA have any clue who Mike Young is. He’s not Joe Torre that’s for sure. But Mike Young is viewed almost as a revolutionary figure in cricket for integrating the standard technical aspects of baseball fielding into the Australian cricket team. Anyone who saw the recent ODI series between Bangladesh and New Zealand would have noticed the improvement in Bangladesh’s fielding. Who is their fielding coach? Former baseball player Julien Fountain. Cricket fans should be grateful to baseball, rather than disparage baseball players as wusses for wearing gloves in the field.

So instead of treating cricket and baseball as competing sports, cricket supporters would be much better served to illustrate them as sports that complement each other. “If you like baseball, you’ll definitely like cricket too” has always worked much better for me to draw people’s interest into the great game of cricket. Taking a confrontational tone, “Baseball sucks! Cricket is the best!” will continue to agitate baseball fans in America and restrict God and his cult of followers to pirated internet streams rather than being seen on TV.