The current Twitter/X sports discourse is split in two: WNBA takes from people who just started watching a couple games ago (me included) and patriotic Americans fighting off the rest of the world. The entire baseball-cricket debate stems from this tweet.
I won’t sit here and pretend I’m some kind of cricket expert. But I’m also not going to sit here and pretend like I’ve never interacted with the sport. I love sports in general; come the Olympics in August I will literally watch anything you put in front of me. Judo? Count me in. Rowing? I’m there. I’ll even watch that rock climbing event, which I think is stupid.
And in all that time I’ve tried to get into cricket I have found it to be worse than baseball in every way. Say what you want about America, but the country has a unique ability to take core ideas and create spectacle. And when it comes to defending an American sport, I will become the most patriotic human alive. Eagle screech, “It’s called soccer” (it’s literally their word), and all the rest becomes my main lexicon.
I remember some time ago ESPN did a Sports Science segment comparing cricket and baseball batters.
Spoilers, so you don’t have to watch it — the baseball player destroys the cricket player. The discourse has always been “What if we have aluminum bats for one player a game”. But what about, “What if we gave a wooden paddle to the DH for one pitch”. Apparently it’s incredibly easy to just destroy a pitch if you use a wooden paddle we used to beat kids with in 1830s wooden schoolhouses. Or frat guys in a very not-gay way while naked in a basement at 3 am because “that’s the brotherhood, bro.”
Every year I try to watch The Ashes or India-Pakistan, and every year it floors me what all of the world calls entertainment. Listen, I love soccer. Objectively I think it’s one of the most beautiful displays of sport to watch. But, you know how we spent 10 years deriding baseball for being boring? Try watching a cricket game. You’ll be begging for pre-pitch clock days of 4-hour games.
“Hur dur the American mind can’t comprehend catching a ball without a glove.” The European mind cannot handle a 90s home run race. They cannot fathom the beauty of watching Barry Bonds (my Hall of Famer) get intentionally walked more in a season than most players get walked during their career. Hell, we’ll even let them watch a compilation of the best playoff home runs.
And I’m not going to sit here and lie that baseball is such a fast-paced fun sport. Our attempts to speed it up are killing pitchers (RIP Jose Urquidy). But watching cricket batting is objectively unfun and also looks so easy. I know I cannot go up and face even a college pitcher. I could hit a six pretty easily, and I haven’t taken a pitch since sixth grade. I’m convinced since the rest of the world doesn’t have as much hand-eye coordination as Americans they find this impressive. None of us do. “Oi what about the six sixes in a row blood fam innit?” Watch one Mark McGwire home run from the 90s.
I also saw this whole thing about how Americans use gloves and that makes cricketers better. Brother, we had a whole thing during the 2019 World Series about how a fan chested a home run while holding two beers. Your Little League-esque dive is not that impressive.
I also want to see a single cricket player have the balls to make this catch.
I also saw someone mentioning hurling as a way to break the American mind. I’ve watched hurling. That’s just a Bryson DeChambeau warmup.
I’ll give cricket this: I think the idea of the wicket kind of rocks. Like hey, if the other team knocks down the sticks the batter has to take a walk of shame to the dugout and watch everyone else have fun. It’s like how HBO portrays college girls, still in their clothes from the night before, sauntering back to their dorm while everyone laughs at them. Except it’s not the people they pass but millions around the world. Still not as good as an okay second base tag, but I’m compliment-sandwiching the rest of the world here.
Speaking of wickets, the pitching is stupid. I understand there are some skills involved in this. But I learned to jump serve a volleyball in a day during the 2012 Summer Olympics, so I feel pretty confident I could learn bowling placement in an afternoon. Also here’s a tweet about the baseball pitch movement. I want to see a cricketer take any of these.
This isn’t really debatable. Baseball is way more fun in every way. I woke up in the middle of the night and was so moved by the horrible opinions of non-Americans that I felt the need to say something. Anyway, here’s the best Conan remote where he plays old-time baseball. And it still looks way more fun than cricket.
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