Baseball Becomes Riveting During the World Series

If you love cricket and have some family or friends from the United States, you may at some time have heard cricket ridiculed in comparison the baseball.  The two sports are so similar yet so different that North Americans feel that their top baseball players would easily defeat any team of the best cricketers from India or anywhere else.

The championship series of baseball, called the World Series is commencing this week.  It could last until November 1 because the winning team must win four games.

Hidden Delights

Whilst we are not fervent fans of baseball, we appreciate the many nuances it presents and we feel that in order to fully defend cricket to Americans, we ought to know more than most Indians know about baseball.

Many people who have tried to watch baseball come away saying that it is too boring.  Cricket has also been called boring but we would disagree.  We suggest that if you watch World Series games, you also have an online casino, such as the very American Grande Vegas, open for some quick diversion during the most uneventful interludes.

The most important thing to understand is the difference between an out in cricket and an out in baseball.  In cricket, when a player is out, he is literally out of the game for offence.  In baseball, the players rotate in a preset line up.  So, a player who makes an out in one inning can bat again in a subsequent inning.

Learning from Every Pitch

In cricket, the batsman must make every adjustment he can in his one turn at bat.  As we know, he can bat for a very long time.  In baseball, good batters learn not only from their at bats but from the at bats of teammates.  In cricket, a team’s best batsman may score a century whilst in baseball, the best batter may get little chance to create “runs”.

This means that every at bat in baseball, however short, is fraught with tension.  Baseball batters don’t have the luxury of defensive maneuvers as in cricket.  Also, in baseball, if the ball gets hit in the field of play, the batter must run whilst in cricket, if you don’t run you cannot be put out.

Every Day

The baseball season covers 162 games from April until the end of September.  A reporter once apologized to a team manager for having taken too much of his time before a game.  The manger, knowing that the reporter was young and new to covering the top league said: “Don’t worry son.  We do this every day.”  In the United States, teams play baseball literally almost every day.  So, during the long season, every at bat, every fielding play, every pitch is full of tension to the players but the fans can always say that they will play again tomorrow.

In the World Series, there will eventually be no tomorrow.  This is what makes the postseason in baseball so exciting.  It is not a one loss and you’re out tournament.  You aren’t out until you’ve lost four times.  But it only takes a few days to lose four times and the games do not last forever.

Defence Decides Many Games

Each team gets three outs per inning on offence.  The players and pitchers are so skilled at defence that it is extremely hard to score even one run in an inning.  Yet both teams in this year’s World Series score about five runs per game.  The challenge for each team’s defence is to not allow extra chances.  In baseball parlance this means making big league plays.

Softly Hit Balls

In cricket, if you hit a ball softly, you can choose not to advance.  In baseball, you don’t have this option.  Most hit balls are not hit hard but it is very hard to turn a softly hit ball into an out.  Thus, the huge pressure on the defensive side.

Statistically, if a team is given even a single extra chance to create a run, it has an overwhelming likelihood of doing so.  In a series that could end in four games, each extra chance is a major turning point in an inning, a game, or the series as a whole.

Baseball is a game of subtle nuances.  We submit that you will enjoy watching these interesting looking “athletes” play their unique game in this year’s World Series.