Interesting sports

One of the things Americans will often claim is that cricket is boring. This is almost always based on a lack of understanding. Yes, a cricket match can last for up to five full days, but that does not mean it's slow. It doesn't mean nothing's happening.

The other day, I was in a restaurant, and upon their multiple televisions there was a baseball match. Now that truly IS a boring sport; approximately every minute or more, one person would throw a ball at high speed, and then nothing would happen. Then they'd roll commercials, and when the game came back, nothing would happen. In the entire time we were there, there was maybe one burst of activity, which unseemly display was rapidly put down. I've never seen so many crowd shots.

In cricket, on the other hand, there is always something happening. One of the many reasons there was stiff resistance to the possibility of showing cricket on commercial channels rather than the BBC was concern that there was not going to be space to fit advert breaks. The same concern dogged Formula 1, but that's not considered at all important, and Bernie Ecclestone is addicted to money, and so that was swept under the rug, but cricket coverage was considered uncommercialisable for many years.

I beilieve that the major appeal of watching baseball is the opportunity it affords for drinking. You can "watch the game" with a constant dripfeed of beer, secure in the knowledge that should you slip into a coma, you won't miss anything, while your other half can't object because it's sports and you're supposed to be into sports. Baseball: not the national sport, the national coverup for getting drunk!