Bulbo Urethral Baggins
Banned
Playoff baseball is amazing. It's the single sport where the game changes so dramatically.. Agree?
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Irish people watch baseball for the first time
- Thread starter XiaNaphryz
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Playoff baseball is amazing. It's the single sport where the game changes so dramatically.. Agree?
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Depends where you go. I took some of our European contractors to a Giants game earlier this summer and they remarked how great the crowd was. They got into the game after some explanation of the basic rules and strategy.
Then again, not every crowd is like our crowd. As Sandoval put it when asked about KC's crowd in the first World Series game, that sort of enthusiasm is what they see every night at SF.
BertramCooper
Banned
Absolutely. Playoff baseball is great.
My first post probably made it seem like I dislike baseball, which isn't true at all. I love baseball, and it was the only sport I was ever any good at.
But it's often a long, slow game, and I'd imagine it's not a game that many people instantly fall in love with.
When I was in the States I used to enjoy going to the bar and watching baseball with a few beers.
I'm Irish though and there's few sports I'd rather watch than championship hurling. The skill and physicality involved is incredible, and it's competely amateur meaning the players don't get paid a penny for their troubles.
I'm Irish though and there's few sports I'd rather watch than championship hurling. The skill and physicality involved is incredible, and it's competely amateur meaning the players don't get paid a penny for their troubles.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Playoff anything is amazing. The stakes matter so much more.
Also, good broadcasts know how to shoot sports dramatically, so that helps too. FOX is really good at making baseball look so much more dramatic in the post-season.
WHAT?!
That sounds like a bad idea. So players do all of those grueling games for no pay?
Bulbo Urethral Baggins
Banned
Baseball should try to find a way to cut down on the number of games and make it interesting. Don't change the game. Change the number of games.
I was going to joke that Fox should make a glowing baseball like they did with a hockey puck. And then they did. And it worked. Was that the first time?
terrisus
Member
Oh, so teams stopped purposely fouling each other, and the last 2 minutes of close games doesn't take 10 minutes to play?
That's good to hear.
terrisus
Member
Disagree.
Maybe get rid of a round of playoffs, but other than that.
Fox is horrible at everything they do.
I would much rather (and do) listen to the radio.
After watching a Baseball anime from the 80s (Touch) I was all like "Yeah! Baseball is rad! I'm going to watch it on TV!"
So then I watched a game of Baseball on TV, and I've never slept better in my life.
Same thing happened with American Football after watching Friday Night Lights. I just can't do it.
So then I watched a game of Baseball on TV, and I've never slept better in my life.
Same thing happened with American Football after watching Friday Night Lights. I just can't do it.
DoktorEvil
Banned
That's a part of the game. Same way in baseball batters foul off 10-15 pitches before either striking out or getting a hit.
Intentional fouls are a strategy, whether or not it drags down game length.
terrisus
Member
So I don't know why you disagreed with my statement then:
What you're saying is "part of the game" and "strategy" would seem absurd, comical, and overly violent to someone who wasn't knowledgable about the game.
We're literally talking about people chasing each other around for the sole purpose of hitting them/shoving them over.
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NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Gaelic Games are amateur sports. Everyone playing has a proper job, they go to training a few times a week during the evening after work. You play for your local club, you can then go to county training and if you're picked you play for your county. County and club have their own training but at different times and there's usually a match on a Sunday either for club or county.
The GAA is also the largest amateur sports organisation in the world.
More Hurling!
Who's that joker without the stick? Is he like Harry Potter in quidditch?
DoktorEvil
Banned
Like in Football?
Or in Rugby?
I see what you're saying, but I don't see it as prolonging the game. Now, if players were actually playing the full 48 instead of waiting until 4th qtr to play hard, then I can't argue that intentional fouls and making free throws aren't a strategic part of NBA Basketball.
But I digress. This will end up in a semantic argument and throw the thread off base.
Baseball is rad. I'm glad I heard of hurling. I'm going to try to watch more of it.
It looks intense as all fuck. It surprises me that:
1) a contact sport like that isn't put on American TV.
2) The players don't look like they wear protective gear.
3) Not a person is paid to play professionally.
4) ITS NOT TELEVISED IN THE US!
Cow Mengde
Banned
More Hurling!
Holy shit, now this is a sport!
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NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
BertramCooper
Banned
The NBA playoffs are awful.
terrisus
Member
Like in Football?
Or in Rugby?
I've never watched Football, and know nothing about Rugby.
But, if it happens there, it's absurd too.
My main argument is more the whole process being absurd, rather than simply that it prolongs the game.
Chasing each other around and hitting each other is "playing hard?"
Never said it wasn't a "strategic part" of Basketball.
I just said that it's absurd - especially to a newcomer watching it for the first time, as in the case of this thread with Baseball.
Fair enough.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Cleveland will be in this year. It's not all bad.
UltraMagnanimous
Member
"Oh no you don't"
"What did I do?"
Sorry are we still doing hurling?
"What did I do?"
Sorry are we still doing hurling?
entremet
Member
Half the league makes it, poor conference distribution (see Eastern conference), and small talent pool will do that.
BertramCooper
Banned
This is true.
Still, the NBA playoffs are fundamentally borked. Too many teams and nothing but seven-game series. It's just awful.
It really is intense. You have to wear a helmet now but up until a couple of years back even that wasn't mandatory and a lot of guys decided not to wear one. There is no other protective gear worn at all. And not a cent paid to the players, nothing, it's all about the competition and the love of the sport.
On the TV thing, this is basically the first year that it's been put on international tv, with a deal done with Sky in the UK to show games. It's gotten a positive enough reaction in the UK but again the vast majority have no idea what it is.
Will just mention the GAA who are the governing body of the sport, there is a GAA club in every single two-bit town and village in the country, they are a part of the fabric of the country. Some people don't like them for various reasons but they do a huge amount for Irish communities in terms of organising the sports and being a focal point for socialising in rural areas.
This is a view of Croke Park on All-Ireland Final day:
TheKaeptain
Banned
Someone post Gaelic Football clips.
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NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Little Green Yoda
Member
Every baseball offseason, I consider learning about the sport of cricket. Maybe this year, I'll actually follow through on that!
This is fucking amazing.More Hurling!
TetraxShards
Member
As an Irish person, reading all these posts of Americans getting to see hurling for the first time is amazing.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
That skinny curly-haired dude really wanted to see some dingers.
Woody Invincible
Banned
ITT, we learn that hurling is the best sport ever.
Where ever you are in the world there is a pretty good chance there is a local GAA club. You could go see a few live matches.
I was listening to an interview recently about a guy who had started a GAA club in Mongolia and was teaching the locals Hurling.
We are forgetting the womens' version: Camogie.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
To be fair, a lot of Americans might make a lot of the same statements. It might be the national pasttime but loads of people just aren't into sportsing.
Does that shirt share relation to the Garfunkle and Oates song? Or did it come first or have no relation to it?
... Or Photoshop? Okay, looking closer I see now.
EDIT: Okay I watched the Sports Go Sports song again for the first time in awhile, I guess not... Remembered it wrong.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
IdreamofHIME
Member
I'm British and don't understand cricket. When the Sports section comes on and they start reading the scores, they might as well be speaking Chinese. I totally tune out, it means zero to me.
I don't like Basketball or American Football, but I know what the scores mean...I have no idea what the fuck they are talking about when readking cricket scores.
TheKaeptain
Banned
Oh shit.
I know you probably won't, but you should give american football a chance. There are really 4 entities in American football playing against each other - each team, and the game clock, and an independent play clock, which is really it's own thing. The game clock acting as a neutral force in the game dramatically dictates the strategy of the game.
People aren't milling about in between plays, and the time spent between plays is important. The time spent between plays is when coaches call in the plays to their players and, much more importantly, when substitutions are made by each team. The offense essentially defines how fast the game moves between plays - if the offense elects a hurry up offense (essentially no down time between plays) the defense has no choice but to go along with it unless the offense substitutes a player, in which case the defense must be allowed time to substitute a player.
Each offense has a maximum of 30 seconds (25 in the pros, I believe) between plays according to the play clock. If you are, for example, decimating a defense with your current lineup, you would go no huddle hurry up to pummel the defense.
There is a lot of nuance in the ways you milk a clock in football, I find the clock rules makes the game much more exciting. In reality, the clock rules for football mimic speed chess in several ways.
There are numerous ways for each team to affect each clock individually, and sometimes "standing around" in and of itself is a strategy. Milking a clock late, on 4th down, your offense goes to the line and imitates cadence for a full 30 seconds to try and draw the defense offsides, for example. The defense knows either it's a fake, or that they're coming on all cylinders. Either the offense is going to play off the defense trying to time a blitz for maximum efficiency for a, say, a game-winning first down, or they're going to call a time out with 1 second left if the ploy doesn't work.
Individual plays affect the clock too. If the game clock is winding down, and you have to march down the field for a win, you'll go to passing plays as incompletions stop the game clock. That sort of stuff. The dual clocks of football, coupled with the ways the offense can affect the clock, pretty much makes it unlike any other sport I've played or witnessed. Even basketball is different because the offense really only has a few ways to affect the clock.
terrisus
Member
I could see the Touch version of American Football being at least mildly interesting.
But when most of the field is just running into each other/trying to slam each other into the ground, I can't take it seriously in the least.
Touch football, by nature, has different clock rules. The need for a play to end only when a knee or elbow touches the ground dictates the clock rules. Touch football gives defenses an unfair advantage.
What you have against contact sports, I can't understand. To each his own. I find american football to be the most exciting sport of all.
Most people don't watch american football like a boxing match or whatever. We don't watch the sport to see people get beat up. We watch it because of the strategy. It's pretty much a non-leathal version of war. If you can enjoy, say, an SRPG, you can enjoy the strategy of american football.
The closest video game equivalent of American Football would probably be a game like Dragon Force or maybe Ogre Battle.
Zeouterlimits
Member
Hurling, Camogie & football talk?
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
terrisus
Member
But, as long as that is happening, I can't really view it that way.
Ogre Battle would basically be just seeing the Xs and Os on a chalkboard.
Touch American Football would be more like a racing game or something.
Regular American Football would be more akin to how I would view a Call of Duty or something - a bunch of people running around blowing each other up while a couple of guys work toward the goal.
I just really don't have any interest in seeing people purposely running into each other/hitting each other/pushing each other over/holding each other down/etc.
It's one of the reasons why I'm glad Baseball has worked to eliminate collisions at home plate.
I mean, if your hold up is that it's a contact sport, fair enough. I just can't understand where it's coming from that any physical contact is abhorrent. I've played Soccer, I used to play basketball when I was young enough before height really mattered, I played football, I played baseball. Very few sports are completely, entirely non-contact. In fact, baseball would probably be the only one I could name off hand that has direct person against person rules. You have stuff like golf, obviously, but that's more trying to beat another person's score.
There are rules about contact in all these sports, too. You can't just blow someone up in american football, that's against the rules. Really, you're not supposed to be hitting, you're supposed to be smothering the other guy and falling down, such that your weight makes their knee touch the ground. Proper tackling technique is to grab ankles and go limp, so they can't take a step. Hitting high is against the rules, any helmet-to-helmet contact is, at least in college, usually accompanied by an ejection from the game.
terrisus
Member
Pretty much, yeah.
And moreso that so much of American Football is specifically focused on these things.
I mean, sure, there's "contact" in Football, but if you're making more than incidental contact with a person, you get penalized for it (and sometimes even if you don't make more than incidental contact with them)
You don't have players running around the Football pitch trying to take a swipe at someone, knock them over, grab them, or whatever else like that. Since, they would get kicked out of the match.
Meanwhile, in American Football, that happens on basically every "play." Yeah, there are rules (in theory) preventing you from killing or seriously disabling the other guy, but the amount of stuff that is just "part of the game" is just pretty disgusting.
Nearly every sport is focused on it in moment-to-moment action.
I question the degree of which you've actually played soccer, because this isn't really true. This might be what the rules state, but there is much more than incidental contact moment-to-moment in soccer. You constantly jostle with players in soccer.
You don't really have that in american football, either. You keep describing the sport as a gladiator blood sport with your language, but it's not like that. You flat out cannot beat up someone in american football.
How would you possibly know what is "part of the game" if you admittedly don't watch the game and are ignorant of the rules? Most of what you've described, for example, isn't permitted by the rules. Holding someone, for example, is a foul. It's called a "holding penalty."
terrisus
Member
Do people not run into other people, hold other people, push other people to the ground, etc.?
Yes, there are rules about where you can hit and how you can hold and such, but do instances of these not happen?
You do this in every sport.
No, that's a penalty
That typically also is a penalty.
To the same degree they happen in any other sport, sure.
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