Not sure how much activity that this thread will get, but I figured I'd give birth to it.

Behind auto-racing, baseball is easily my second favorite sport. I'm not sure how many other countries play it or watch it, but I personally do both. I pitch and play second base at my High School of around 500 students.

Season here begins the end of March, and I'm starting to get ready for the season. MLB begins around the same time, but of course goes much deeper into the year as we finish around the beginning of may after playing 25 games.

I'm just curious what baseball's presence around the world is and your opinion of it

Over here girls play it and they call it rounders.

Same for Bastketball, except they call it netball

Couldn't help myself, sorry USA

And it has a sponge ball.

Baseball is dull and non-athletic, the games last about 3 hours, but the time spent actually playing is around about 11 minutes. The only skill is in hitting the ball, and the majority of the time they don't even do that. It's a great hobby, playing catch and hitting balls around with a stick, but as a sport it's a joke.

Baseball is so boring...it makes Cricket look exciting.

I'm not really a fan, but I don't see how you could say it's non-athletic. You'll definitely find different body types there than you would in soccer, for instance, but they're finely tuned to do what they do, and do it well.

All popular American sports are the same, they last for hours and have very little action in them. Baseball is non-athletic, but it does require skill, much like Golf, Darts, Curling or Bowls. I didn't include Cricket in that list because they play longer, do more running, bowling and batting is more challenging and they don't get oversized gloves to catch the ball with.

Baseball is fun to play, it's a good way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, but I could play a whole game without a problem, whereas I could barely last 10 minutes in a Soccer match.

but could you last 162 baseball games with a game pretty much every day? It's a season long campaign, not individual battles like some other sports.

And you can't say there is no athleticism required to pitch over 90mph? Or hit a home run? Those take a lot of strength. And I wouldn't say the bowling or batting is necessarily more challenging in cricket, why do you think that?

Quote from RiseAgainstMe! :

but could you last 162 baseball games with a game pretty much every day? It's a season long campaign, not individual battles like some other sports.

And you can't say there is no athleticism required to pitch over 90mph? Or hit a home run? Those take a lot of strength. And I wouldn't say the bowling or batting is necessarily more challenging in cricket, why do you think that?

Playing High School ball you realize how grueling the sport is. We play 3 - 6 games a week (double headers on long road trips usually on Saturdays, Sunday's are required to be off).

I play soccer (2 - 3 games a week), and I'd honestly can say I'm more tired after I play my 6th baseball game in a week than I am my 3rd soccer game. Baseball uses alot more muscles than soccer does is the simple explanation. Baseball you use alot of core and legs as well along with the obvious use of the arms. (soccer leaves the arms relativly un-worked)

People living outside of the United States see our sports as lazy simply because they see us as lazy. It's a pre-conceived opinion that you guys have prior to learning about the sport, and then you can't be told otherwise. It's like trying to convince a bigfoot beleiver that bigfoot isn't real... you just can't do it.

Quote from Cornys :

I play soccer (2 - 3 games a week), and I'd honestly can say I'm more tired after I play my 6th baseball game in a week than I am my 3rd soccer game. Baseball uses alot more muscles than soccer does is the simple explanation. Baseball you use alot of core and legs as well along with the obvious use of the arms. (soccer leaves the arms relativly un-worked)

People living outside of the United States see our sports as lazy simply because they see us as lazy. It's a pre-conceived opinion that you guys have prior to learning about the sport, and then you can't be told otherwise. It's like trying to convince a bigfoot beleiver that bigfoot isn't real... you just can't do it.

Soccer's a different type of tired. It's all cardio, whereas in baseball you likely get tired from repetition of very specific actions (swinging, throwing etc.). And if you are a pitcher or a catcher, it's waayyy worse.

Yup, nailed it. And it's not just sports.
There are plenty from our country who are just as ignorant back though, it goes both ways. And not everyone elsewhere is ignorant on these things, just a number of them.
Begin flame war.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

All popular American sports are the same, they last for hours and have very little action in them.

Frankly, Soccer is by far the worst offender for this. And it's not very big in America, relatively speaking.

As far as baseball goes; playing it I found to be ok but I couldn't watch a game on TV. I like going to the Blue Jays games, buying the cheapest tickets and then just going into the bar on the 200 level for some of the best seats in the building and get beer brought right to me. Not bad for $9... plus beer.

As far as I know - there is a Latvian baseball league,of course,total amateur/enthusiast level,where the all-star team most likely would be beaten to dust by american college benchwarmers,but still - we have one! And in Italy and Germany there are semi-pro level leagues,if I have information correctly,so Europe is also batting the balls around the park. Unfortunatelly the baseball bat in our country associates more with weapon than sportsware. I have only virtual experience with baseball - played it in computergames only...

PS. There's a joke around here about baseball and Russia: Statistics showing that in Russia have been sold 100 thousand baseball bats and 5 balls!

Quote from Eclipsed :

Statistics showing that in Russia have been sold 100 thousand baseball bats and 5 balls!

haha

Quote from MAGGOT :

Frankly, Soccer is by far the worst offender for this. And it's not very big in America, relatively speaking.

Rubbish! Even when the game is a boring 0-0 we have ways of making it entertaining...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSBkK2B6AfI

I watched a bit of the "Little League World Series" last summer (yes, that's 14 year olds on TV playing baseball....) and don't really understand the rules - it was quite confusing. I think the one thing the Americans do very well (as I think they said on TG last week) is the Americans are very good at making boring sports exciting - I went to a basketball game a couple of years ago and it was amazing.

My prediction is that a baseball thread in Europe would get similar attention like a soccer thread would in the USA due to lack of popularity.

Quote from rediske :

My prediction is that a baseball thread in Europe would get similar attention like a soccer thread would in the USA due to lack of popularity.

Soccer is big in the USA, it's the most played sport, but not the most watched. Granted the majority of people who play it are women or children, but the MLS still gets more attendance per game than Basketball and Ice Hockey.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Soccer is big in the USA, it's the most played sport, but not the most watched. Granted the majority of people who play it are women or children, but the MLS still gets more attendance per game than Basketball and Ice Hockey.

Not really a fair comparison, given the size of the arenas.

(But I do think soccer is the better sport of those three.)

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Not really a fair comparison, given the size of the arenas.

(But I do think soccer is the better sport of those three.)

I may have quoted that fact wrong, it was probably a higher percentage of available tickets are sold, that would make more sense.

It's more per game, not more total. Hockey and basketball have more games per season. They are still clearly ahead.

But it's still going up rapidly for soccer. Every year is a new high attendance-wise in MLS. Seattle averaged almost 40,000 per game last year. Vancouver, Portland, Philly, and SKC sold out every game or close to it I believe. SKC just built a new stadium, Houston and San Jose are building them right now. Added a team in Montreal, after two last year.

Brand new TV deal too. And a rash of signings of young talent from Latin America. It's definitely going in the right direction, and quite rapidly.

Whereas basketball, not so much.

How big is Futsal in the US? It's not very big in the UK, but I imagine it would be more suited to the American audience since it's basically Basketball crossed with Soccer, in as much as it's usually played in on Basketball courts and involves more flair and action than a normal Soccer match.

This is Futsal by the way, well some skills from it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... pX9j8&feature=related

I thought that this was supposed to be about baseball...