I recently rcvd the following letter from someone who deeply enjoys and understands the game of baseball and would like to have some input on how it is compared to cricket. Thus i am reproducing his letter and would like to invite the entire forum to weigh in and give our friend Rod some input. Thanks

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I am a baseball fan with deep appreciation and substantial knowledge of what is going on.

I know little or nothing about cricket; I would like to get a substantial understanding of it too, so I can compare; perhaps a forum for new people that really breaks down the game, almost bowl by bowl to explain what is exactly going on in each player's head at the moment.

A letter writer to the New York Times recently said that baseball is to cricket as checkers is to chess. I don't see how that is possible, given that baseball is highly situational and involves very substantial number crunching and computer and video analysis, and involves numerous players simultaneously on both sides, as well as a variety of offensive and defensive strategies that are specific to game situations, but I am open to hearing the cricket side of things.

In exchange, I'll answer questions about baseball, ranging from the situations that may exist, the general and specific strategies in those situations (which do not really vary from team to team or over time) and about the leagues and the championships.

I also wondered if any good cricket players had ever tried to transition to baseball, where there is much, much more money to be made. It seems to me that baseball is a harder game to play than cricket, and in particular, that hitting a baseball cleanly and to good effect is much more difficult than hitting in cricket, but that the same is true for pitching versus bowling. Major league teams scour the world for talent; if some cricket guy can be the next Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds, I'd like to be in on the ground floor of that.

Rod Kovel
Merrick, NY USA

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Brett Lee went to America to train as a pitcher, he never wanted to play baseball but he used to oppotunity to work on his throwing technique. The funny thing was out of all the people that were training Brett Lee had the worst technique but threw the fastest and accuratly.

When Adam Gilchrist was rated as having the best bat eye coordination and quickest bat swing of any sportsman in the world (bat sports), one of the American teams approached him but he didnt want to play baseball at all. Plus his catching would be helpful as well

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

It seems to me that there is much misinformation about baseball in the cricket world.

One website wondered about the speed of big league pitching. Most high quality professional pitchers are firing the ball in at about 90 miles an hour, which means that the ball reaches home plate out of the pitcher's hand in about .454 seconds. He also is closer to the batter than the bowler is to his opponent. They will literally have about .1 second to decide where the pitch is coming and with what trajectory. But that is not the whole story.

Unlike cricket, where the theory is defense of the wicket, the hitter's job is to swing with all his might most of the time, because tap aways and defensive strokes merely to avoid losing the wicket result in what amounts to run outs, as hitters must run on any ball struck onto the field of play. A hitter can not merely defend and wait for his ball by having the bat already prepared at the angle he means to stroke it; it has to be over his shoulder and he has to come all of the way through on every swing. Any tap away will yield an out. So the time he has to decide if he is to swing is much reduced from that of cricket, and compounded by the fact the bat must be swung all of the way around from the hitter's body.

Also, unlike cricket, the playing field occupies only a 90 degree angle from the hitter's position, so he has much less room to work with, and there are 8 defenders in that zone. Cricket has fewer men to catch the ball.

Unlike cricket, the ball is well concealed prior to the delivery by the pitcher, which further reduces his ability to hit it. And batters can not wait all day for their ball to hit; the pitcher's zone, called the strike zone, where a batter is pretty much expected to swing, is much larger in baseball, and of course, he has a much smaller and lighter bat, which is round, to make hitting even harder, to work with. The strike zone -- where a batter is expected to hit a ball into the playing field, is 17 inches across and about 3 1/2 to 4 feet in height for most batters, and

Baseball pitchers also can do at least as much, if not more, with a pitch than a bowler can. To be sure, a bowler can bounce his throw anywhere and a pitcher has no such option, but a number of pitchers can slide a pitch horizontally across the strike zone by as much as 8 to 12 inches, and many can mimic the action of a ball falling off a table, ie, a sharp drop as the pitch moves across the hitting area. It may be the same in cricket, but hitters don't actually know where the zone is on a given night due to the variation amongst umpires.

Baseball players do have the advantage of situational play that does not seem to exist in cricket. At times, the offense and defense use strategies that change the odds of hitting somewhat, often to the batter's advantage. However, ultimately, even the best hitters produce outs about 70 percent of the time against the league, less against the better pitchers, and the outs usually come quickly, so a hitter does not get a half-hour long chance to guage his opponent.

In sum, hitting a baseball is generally regarded as the toughest thing to do in sport, primarily because of the speed of the pitch as it comes in.

To date, we have not seen a cricket player try to make the transition, although Babe Ruth claimed in his autobiography that he broke a cricket bat in his only try at that game, a result he was told was unheard of.

Say that to Shoaib Akhtar... The fastest delivery of a cricket ball ever bowled in something like 100mph...To me both baseball and cricket have good merits. I think this can't be judged.

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Frank Skinner: "You know when Glenn McGrath trod on that cricket ball? Don't you wish it would've been a landmine?"

All:

One thing baseball has going for it is the "do or die" moment that often comes up, which are riveting to watch when they occur.

Because teams only have three outs per inning, and take frequent turns batting, games can really be see-saw, but as it comes down to just a few outs left, and as the pressure rises, there are frequent instances when only a couple of at bats -- 2 or 3 minutes on the clock -- will make the difference between winning and losing, and a single climactic play will spell the difference.

Last night offered an example. It was a 1 game playoff game between San Diego and Colorado, done to settle a tie for the last wild card position in the regular playoffs. Naturally, the one game was tied after the regulation 9 innings, and they went to extra innings.

San Diego managed to put two across in their half (the top) of the 13th, and sent in their closing pitcher to seal the deal. This is a guy who gets paid about $10M a year just to slam the door in the last inning and "save" the game.

Well, the closer had a meltdown, and three extra base hits later, the score is again tied, and the winning run is on third with no outs. Now this is a spot with lots of strategy for both sides, because some kinds of outs are as good as hits in this situation, a feature that is special to baseball. Not only does the pitcher have to prevent a hit, he has to prevent many kinds of outs too, vastly limiting his arsenal and makes hitting easier. Because of this, all of the fielders play in really close to cut off some balls that otherwise might be hits and to make some kinds of defensive plays that otherwise they could not in order to cut down that runner on third, but also allowing other balls that might be outs to be hits (because it doesn't really matter). Anyway, a short fly to the right fielder, and the runner tries to advance home after it is caught. He carries the whole season with that run. A perfect throw, a huge crash at home plate, a little delay until the smoke clears so the umpire can sort it out, and the winning run has scored (the ump missed the call).

The wonder of baseball and the reason Americans enjoy it so much is that it combines the all-day and long term strategies of cricket with the potential for last minute heroics (as in soccer, but it really happens much, much more frequently).

I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact the latter element is mostly missing from cricket moves it closer and closer toward the pacing and the back and forth of baseball. The limited overs game, it seems to me, adds some of the pressure of late inning baseball, as it forces hitters to be less selective and to try to collect runs more quickly as the overs wind down. I heard about something called 2020 cricket, and while I'm not really sure what that is, it sounds like a way to ratchet up pressure baseball style.

We will know for certain if cricket is moving towards baseball if it ever gives up the 10 out innings, and adopts 3 out innings, with the sides taking turns batting more frequently. If it gets there, cricket basically becomes baseball in terms of the up and down nature of the score, and the much more pressurized finish of the game. I think that will encourage "closer" bowlers, and perhaps other strategies that mirror baseball's too.

A pitcher throwing at 90 miles an hour is easier to hit than a bowler at 90 miles and hour because a bowler is able to bounce the ball and its can swing as well as stay low off the pitch or bounce higher off the pitch or jag off the pitch. scarier as well because it is legal to hit a batsman in cricket where in baseball the pitcher doesnt want to walk the hitter. Taking nothing away from baseballers because the average speed of a pitcher is faster than an average bowler.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

Quagmire:

I think you are underappricating the skills and strategies of pitchers.

Aside from the fact that a 90MPH pitch sizzles like a steak while it passes a hitter like a speeding bullet, I'm pretty confident in saying that pitchers can do practically whatever bowlers can -- even thought they have no advantage of a scuffed ball (illegal in baseball to deface the ball, and ruined ones are tossed out of the game, about once every other hitter) to help sliding (swinging) it, or curving (dropping) it -- and can be pretty consistent about the action on the ball as it goes past the hitter in the 80 or 90 MPH range. They don't need to rely the luck of an exact-right bounce off the seam or a cloudy day or a slick drop area to make the craziness happen. Just skill.

Real good major leaguers can make a pitch slide 6 or 8 inches across (and out of) the hitting area as the ball comes in; a very few can make the ball act like a frisbee, and literally have it slide from the hitter's back to his front and over the plate. Others can make the ball drop unnaturally, perhaps a foot or more over its trajectory. Top pitchers throw pitches that move in more than one way at a time, dropping and sliding, all at 90 or more MPH, which causes batters to hit the ball weakly, and can throw several kinds of pitches successfully, and the best of them conceal what is coming so well that hitters are left to guess at what is coming, when a wrong guess means they have no chance. Basically, hitters get 1/10th of a second to decide where to swing and with what stroke type; past that point it is not humanly possible to swing the bat and hit a delivery.

And since the ball usually comes in quicker in baseball, the devastating effect of a changeup, in which the pitcher drops the speed by 10% or so off his usual speed with no change in his mechanics as it comes in, is far greater in baseball, it seems to me.

Yet other pitchers rely on perfect targeting of pitches to areas that are known weaknesses, and still others rely on outmaneuvering hitters by making them guess wrong as to what is coming.

Moreover, the bounce slows bowls, even the fastest ones, to perhaps 2/3rds of the initial speed, so the ball really comes into the hitter relatively slowly, which is why many of them can hold their bats in front of their bodies as the ball comes in, and then shift their feet, and arch their backs, and still hit the ball with authority. In baseball, it is impossible for a hitter to shift his feet based on where the pitch is coming; the ball comes in way too fast all the way through the hitting area, and often with way too much action to allow it. If he had the bat down and in front as the ball came in, he would never even reach the shoulder high pitch. And while I appreciate the fact that cricket batters are part time goalies, the slowness of the bounced in delivery gives a hitter a chance to waste a bowl they can't really handle by tapping it away or letting it pass if not at the wicket; baseball players simply do not have this option because a pitch can be a truly unhittable one, and yet still be in the strike zone, and can be the third strike if not swung at.

Additionally, because a protective tap or any weakly hit ball that ends up in fair territory is in play in baseball, and the hitter has to run (and he will be out), hitters have little choice but to swing with all their might and all around their bodies in almost every situation. Consequently, they can not hold the bat out in front of their faces as cricket hitters can, because they can not get any bat speed to hit fast pitching sharply that way. If the ball is merely tapped foul purposefully, it can be the third strike too. So hitters have many fewer options other than to swing away with all their might when they stand in, with always the lurking probability that the pitch that is actually unhittable is going to be strike three.

Additionally, in baseball, the bat is round, so the ball has to be struck perfectly, else it is an out much more often than not. It is impossible to hit a baseball with the bat perpendicular to the ground. A cricket bat is much more forgiving and has a huge sweet spot compared to baseball. The baseball field is also only 90 degrees, and , so in addition to needing to be perfect with the stroke, there are many more guys per square foot around to defend the area, and, of course, they have gloves that make it easier to catch batted balls.

To be sure, cricket allows a delivery to the body of a hitter, while baseball ostensibly prohibits it. Yet it happens all the time, and since above-the-waist pitching is perfectly proper, it is often the case that hitters can not get out of the way and get clunked in the head.

On the other hand, being a successful hitter in baseball does not always require getting a hit; sometimes causing the right kind of out will suffice just as well as a hit. This makes the job a little easier depending on the situation; but it may be more than equalized by the fact that baseball players do not get a lengthy opportunity to gauge the pitcher by facing him for hours as may occur in cricket, and by the fact that a tired or ineffective pitcher is substituted out, leaving a hitter to have to face someone who is fresh whom he may never before have seen in action.

Overall, the best baseball players in the world are out 7 times in every 10 trips, and strike out -- find themselves unable to touch a pitch -- about 1.5 times out of every 10 trips. The best cricket hitters in the world are up for hours, score 100 or more runs in a single session, and when was the last time a hitter didn't make any contact at all, assuming he was trying? The skills are different, but I think baseball players have much more difficulty being successful at hitting than cricket players do.

Someday, a cricket player will have a serious try out with a major league baseball team. There is, of course, many more millions of dollars to be earned in baseball than in other games. I have heard of some tryout offers and some not-so-serious efforts at it by some cricket stars; so far, no one has actually jumped sports. American League teams use a "designated hitter" -- no fielding responsibilties at all -- and they are anxious to find anyone who can hit and run well enough. Somebody in the world of cricket should give this a real shot, and then we'll know.

Ive played baseball in my time and I have played against a couple of pitchers that can throw that sort of speed. Im not ranging out of baseball pitchers and im not saying its easy to hit pitchers who can throw 90 miles and hour sliders or curve balls. The differenct between the two is plainly the fact that hitting a bouncing ball that can swing, reverse swing, cut off the seam, stay low or kick up at that sort of speed is more difficult and dangerous. But there are plenty more pitchers that pitch at 90 miles and hour than cricket bowlers that bowl at those speeds. Plus cricket balls are a lot harder than baseballs.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

October means baseball playoffs; best part of the season. Baseball is played a little differently than in regular season; more pressure, less experimentation, more use of strategy than just talent.

And more scrutiny.

This is the time to watch.

Also, the length of a playoff series, 3 of 5 or 4 of 7 gives some more of the element of cricket, ie, the continuous testing for weaknesses, the finding and exploitation of weaknesses. In a long series, it is said, teams can't hide their flaws.

Also, the arrangement of the pitching seems to have much in common with the selection of bowlers -- trying to get the right matchups all the time, artful choices in the head to head between the pitchers, and getting them the rest they need to perform the best for as much as they have.

Best time of the year to watch sports is the baseball playoffs, culminating in the World Series in a couple of weeks.

Since I haven't seen any cricket telecasts, somebody will have to fill me in.

Baseball is a great game for TV because coverage includes lots of close ups which helps understand the pressure and the stuff the players are going through. If you watch an at bat close up for the usual minute or two that it takes, you see every grimace and grunt and smile and whisper and flick of the eyes; it is almost like you can get to know a player personally this way, and that is one of the attractions of baseball. Because the players are moving around alot in most of the other sports, you just don't get this. How does cricket do it?

Ironically, TV viewing of games (at least on the networks) is way down, but fans in the seats are way up; the Yanks drew more than 4 million people to 81 home games, and the Mets more than 3 million, so both averaged in the 40 or 50 thousand range, which is amazing since the tickets average about $40 or so, plus parking, food and routine souvenirs.