Baseball, hotdog, apple pie and Chevrolet are said to be the essence of Americana. In my desire to get assimilated into American society I have dabbled in all of them. I had a Chevrolet Vega during my university days which proved to be a low-cost reliable mode of transportation. A hotdog is often an inexpensive but tasty and filling lunch. I have tried and liked apple pie on many occasions. Baseball is a different story. It did not appeal to me because it reminded me of cricket but appeared to be a distorted version. I didn’t even try to watch or understand the game until the local team “Padres” made it to the World Series while I was living in San Diego.
The games share some similarities. There are batsmen, bowlers (pitchers), fielders, wicketkeepers (catchers) and wickets (bases). There are eleven players in a cricket team and nine in baseball. In both games one can score by running between bases or hitting the ball over the boundary. The batsman is “out” if he pops up a ball which is caught by a player of the opposite team or misses the ball which then strikes a certain zone behind the batsman or is tagged before reaching a base while running. There are only two innings in a cricket test match but nine in a baseball match for each team. However, only three players at a time bat in baseball (more if any of the first three advances to the next base) in an innings while all eleven players get a chance to bat in each inning in cricket. Cricket has only two bases and a “run” is scored when the batsman can run to the opposite base. In baseball there are four bases at corners of a diamond and a run is scored only when the striker makes a complete trip around the diamond touching all bases.
Here are the aspects of baseball I never liked. The baseball bat is a skinny round stick; the chance of the bat hitting the ball thrown at a high speed is dramatically lower than in the case of cricket where the bat is flat and significantly wider. As a result, baseball is inherently a lowscoring game where the result is typically decided by single-digit scores as opposed to hundreds of runs in a cricket match. The baseball spectators must patiently wait for the moment when the batsman’s bat strikes a ball; these moments are few and far between. The second important difference is that the pitcher in baseball throws the ball directly at the batsman standing at the same location. Bowling in cricket requires an elegant circular motion of the arm by raising it above the head and this can be done to deliver the ball in various ways. The bowler is allowed to run for several yards before delivering the ball.
Although the baseball pitcher can put different types of spin and swing on the ball, the delivery is still a brute force action; one key measure of success is the speed of the ball. Bowling in cricket is an art and relies on delicate movements of fingers, wrist and elbow. A similar difference exists in batting. The batsman in baseball has only two choices: he can take a wild swing and hope to hit the ball as hard as he can or lightly deflect the ball (“bunting”) to give his partner an opportunity to run to the next base. In cricket there is a wide variety of strokes that the batsman has at his disposal: drives, hooks, glances, cuts, sweeps, and so on. Each stroke requires a rather delicate movement of the arm. The third annoying aspect of baseball is that the decision about a “strike” seems to be subjective based on visual judgment by the umpire. In cricket, whether a batsman is “bowled” is clear by looking at the “bails” and the stumps without any guessing. A cricket “test match” goes on for five days (regional ones for three days) while a baseball match typically lasts no more than four to five hours.
The reason again is the structure of the bat. The narrow baseball bat means a much higher probability of the ball striking the target zone. A batsman in cricket can play for hours if not days without being out. However, there are some appealing aspects of baseball. In a baseball match one can watch the entire game in one afternoon or evening. To watch a complete cricket match, one must take time off from work or school for five full days – an impractical proposition. One usually watches only a portion of the match. Secondly, a cricket test match gives a clue about how the game is going to end after about three days. The result of a baseball game is highly uncertain partly because of the unpredictable probability of a run being scored. A baseball game ends with one team being the victor. There is no such thing as “draw” or “tie”. The game continues with extra innings added until it is decided. A cricket test match is never allowed to extend beyond five days. I was, nonetheless, unimpressed by baseball.
Baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839. Cricket, on the other hand, is believed to have been invented in England a couple of hundred years earlier and the first documented cricket match in the US was played in 1751. Cricket is played only in countries that were part of the British Commonwealth. Baseball is common in the Western hemisphere and a few Asian countries. Most major sport powerhouses in the world, including Germany, France, Italy, China, Russia as well as the countries in Africa, Latin America and the middle east do not seem to have any interest in either sport. As a result, cricket has never been included as an Olympic sport whereas Baseball was included in only five Olympics. Baseball seems to be an Americanization of the game of cricket with the goal of reducing the duration of a match. During the 1970s, cricket authorities realised this important point about the spectators’ desire to watch a complete match and introduced “one-day international” tournaments by limiting the number of “overs” to 50 per side with one inning each. A similar concept, “T20” tournaments, further shortened to 20 overs for each side, was introduced in 2003.
Baseball is a game of physical strength. Skill in Cricket, on the other hand, lies all in the wrist and arm movement. The entire strategy of the batsman is how to deflect the trajectory of a ball with minimal exertion. The bowler uses his grip on the stitches of the ball and the location on the turf where the ball hits ground to his advantage in addition to arm movement. This subtlety perfectly fits the Indian temperament. It is impossible to like baseball if one is passionate about cricket. However, I am overjoyed at the news about the current “T20 cricket world cup” and the US cricket team’s recent victory over Pakistan in Dallas. Governor Hochul of New York had signed legislation in 2021 to promote and expand the game of cricket in her state. Now I am hoping that the popularity of cricket in this country will spread to all big cities and someday even reach the same status as baseball. Perhaps I can then become fully Americanized even without being a fan of baseball. (The writer, a physicist who worked in industry and academia, is a Bengali settled in America