These are exciting times for baseball fans.\u00c2\u00a0 The MLB regular season draws ever closer while the World Baseball Classic has reached its final stages.<\/p>\n
Amid this backdrop, the week has been marked by an unlikely cricketing audition by a Major League slugger and further uncertainty in regards to baseball’s terrestrial TV presence during 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It’s just not cricket<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier this week, we were treated to the bizarre sight of Manny Ramirez trying his hand at cricket<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Delightfully decked out in cricketing gear (helmet, leg pads and – what Manny was most proud about – the all-important box), Ramirez faced some gentle bowling with a bemused smile on his face.<\/p>\n If I said that Manny had walked out on his new 2-year\/$45m contract to take up a cricketing career, you might pause for a second and think: “well, I wouldn’t put it past him”.\u00c2\u00a0 However, National League pitchers have not had their prayers answered.\u00c2\u00a0 Ramirez was simply taking part in a promo stunt for DirecTV designed to raise the profile of the Indian Premier League (IPL).<\/p>\n Would Manny make much of a cricketer?\u00c2\u00a0 His technique is a useful demonstration of the fact that batting in cricket and baseball are two\u00c2\u00a0very different disciplines.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly hand-eye coordination is important with both (as Manny points out himself), but a baseball swing has little else in common with most cricket shots.<\/p>\n When Marcus Trescothick brought together<\/a> a team of cricketers to face the British national baseball team last year, the Guardian’s Andy Bull noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n “The power needed to hit that far [a 450 foot home run] comes from pivoting the hips. It’s more akin to a golf swing than a cricket shot, where opening the hips means you’ll play across the ball”.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Just as “James Hildreth simply couldn’t curb his desire to cover-drive, and Arul Suppiah played a string of lovely back-foot defensives with a vertical bat”, Manny found it difficult (admittedly after only a small amount of practice time) to turn his baseball-hitting instincts into an effective cricket technique.<\/p>\n Fielding is a key difference between the two games as well, another point explained in Bull’s article by Alan Smith<\/a>, Great Britain’s General Manager.\u00c2\u00a0 Even so, it’s safe to say that the defensively-challenged Ramirez would be hidden away at the third man position should he venture any further with cricket.\u00c2\u00a0 He would certainly be good value when it comes to banter with the crowd on the boundary.<\/p>\n However, comparing the two sports is useful in reminding us just how much dedication it takes to make it to the top level of either.\u00c2\u00a0 England star Kevin Pieterson has all the athletic ability to be a good baseball player, but he would struggle to get anywhere near the Majors if he took up the sport today.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s no slight against KP, it’s simply due to the cricketing path he has taken in his life so far and the incredibly high standard he would be required to meet.<\/p>\n Ramirez is equally talented, but he has been playing baseball since he was a kid, putting in hour-upon-hour of practice for years before he made his Major League debut in 1993.\u00c2\u00a0 The top players make the game look easy, so you can overlook the fact that even a fringe Major Leaguer is a very talented player on any overall scale of baseballing ability.<\/p>\n By the same token, Pieterson has taken his natural talent and worked for years to make him the cricketer he is today.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no short cuts to the top of the sport, so Manny is unlikely to be square-cutting a bowler at Lords any time soon.<\/p>\n He’s also unlikely to be belting a home run at Lords either, although the idea of the Dodgers playing America’s National Pastime at the ‘home of cricket’ sounds like a good one to me.<\/p>\n ‘Does anyone know who won?’<\/strong><\/p>\n One comparison you can make between baseball and cricket is the ability of their respective leaders to mess things up.\u00c2\u00a0 Few sports in the world can match cricket’s administrative ineptitude and that was highlighted on Friday by the farcical end<\/a> to England’s One Day International match against the West Indies.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00c2\u00a0was a good five minutes after the players had come off\u00c2\u00a0the field before anyone knew who had\u00c2\u00a0actually\u00c2\u00a0won the game.<\/p>\n The affair called to mind game five<\/a> of last year’s World Series, when most onlookers were unsure what was happening as the players finally ran for cover from the rain-lashed ballfield.\u00c2\u00a0 Was the game over?\u00c2\u00a0 Had the Phillies won the World Series?\u00c2\u00a0 Few people, not even all of the players, were completely sure.<\/p>\n All things considered, baseball cannot quite match cricket in the ‘does anyone know what they’re doing?’ stakes.\u00c2\u00a0 At least this was a rare occasion\u00c2\u00a0in which England come out on the right side of a cricketing farce.<\/p>\n Will MLB be on British TV in ’09? Just two weeks to go before the MLB opener between the Braves and the Phillies and we still do not know whether the game will be broadcast on terrestrial TV.<\/p>\n There is still no official news from Five about their plans for the 2009 season.\u00c2\u00a0 A\u00c2\u00a0restructuring exercise<\/a> is taking place at the channel, in which “up to 87 positions out of a total workforce of 354 could be impacted”, which doesn’t give much cause for optimism that they will be willing to invest in late night sports.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless a late deal can be reached with MLB International, Five’s eleven-year run of supporting the sport looks set to come to an end.<\/p>\n
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