As part of the "Buy This Blog" incentive for the DonorsChoose fundraiser, Ewan McNay asks for a post on
the superiority of Commonwealth sports (cricket, football) over the
US-favoured kind (baseball, american football) ;-). Oh, OK, then; I'll
setle for cricket.
Cricket? You want me to talk up cricket?
The best I can do is this: If you've ever been watching a baseball game, and said to yourself "Boy, I wish this could go on all week," well, then, have I got a game for you...
I can, however, make a case for the superiority of rugby to American football:
Now, don't get me wrong-- I'm a big fan of American football, and will go to some lengths to keep track of my Giants. But I played rugby in college, and there's nothing like playing a game to give you a lasting appreciation for it. (Playing it voluntarily, that is-- PE classes don't count.)
Rugby has the best features of American football-- regular scoring, great athleticism, and shocking violence, but is actually superior to football in a number of respects:
1) Continuous play. Unlike football, in rugby the play doesn't stop when the ball carrier gets tackled, only on one of a smallish number of rules violations. This means that, for the most part, the game is always in progress, and the players are always in motion. This, in turn, demands a level of fitness that football doesn't-- there's no place in rugby for 400-pound armored steroid freaks who need a thirty-second rest after ten seconds of game action.
2) Lack of wonkery. Following from that, there is no room in rugby for Ron Jaworski. Because the play is so much more fluid, there isn't the same emphasis on schemes and coverages and set plays, and thus not much point in the obsessive breaking down of videotape. It's a purer contest between the players on the field, not a contest to see whose coach can go without sleep the longest to come up with a new and unusual scheme to confuse the opponent.
3) Teamwork. You'll occasionally hear commenters describe football as the ultimate team sport, but they're wrong. Football provides ample room for self-centered prima donnas, and you can have guys on the same team who barely even talk to one another. On a big-time football team, the defensive players havae almost no contact with the offensive players, and even if you restrict this to one side of the ball, the constant stopping and restarting means that you can put up with wide receivers who are openly feuding with the rest of the offense.
You can't have that in rugby. Because the ball is constantly in play, every player on the field is at least potentially part of every play, so they need to be working as a team-- and believe me, I've played on a side with a massively dysfunctional line, so I know what happens when you don't have everybody on the same page.
There also isn't the same incentive for individual stat-padding. In football, because the play stops once the ball carrier is down, there's an incentive to fight for extra yardage all the time. In rugby, that's folly-- you might pick up an extra couple of yards by dint of individual effort, but you'll probably end up running away from your support in the process, and lose the ball to the other team. Rugby requires you to always be aware of your teammates, and it's nearly always better to pass the ball, or even stop and set the ball, than to make the individual play for glory. This is, far and away, the hardest thing to get Americans to understand when they start playing the game.
(There's probably a political statement here, about the relative popularity of the more individualistic football in America, and the more team-oriented rugby in, well, everywhere else...)
So, there you go: three solid reasons why rugby is a better game than American football. Of course, American football is better suited to television than rugby is-- the constant stopping and re-starting allow plenty of time for replays and analysis, while if you take time for replays in rugby, you're likely to miss a great play. But as a game, rugby is better.
Of course, neither is as good as basketball, which is the best game ever invented. I'd say more about that, but I need to get ready for my lunchtime pick-up game.
- Log in to post comments
As I understand it, rugby can be played properly only when drunk, preferably on actual mead.
Where I went to school, I got to see the ruggers practice, and to admire their rugger-hugger groupies.
Where I went to school, I got to see the ruggers practice, and to admire their rugger-hugger groupies.
I'm sure some Williams-related snark would be appropriate here, but since they went co-ed in 1970, I'll refrain.
Thanks... I think :).
With Twenty20, you can now get a cricket match in a few hours - but yes, watching a 5-day Test match is one of life's great joys, at its best.
[Rugby's my game also. Basketball? Pfui.]
As I understand it, rugby can be played properly only when drunk, preferably on actual mead.
I don't think I ever played drunk, but I was usually at least hung over.
I'm sure some Williams-related snark would be appropriate here, but since they went co-ed in 1970, I'll refrain.
Believe me, we didn't have groupies.
Pretty much the only women who would have anything to do with us were the women's rugby club...
Hey, why not cricket? The physics of how the ball can be made to curve ("bend" to the English) one way in the air and then go the opposite when when it bounces ("pitches" in English) is pretty cool. There is also the near isomorphism between ways to be put out in baseball and ways to be put out in cricket, not to mention the evolution of baseball with rounders along the way.
I like your comments about rugby. Items 1 and 2 go together, and identify the characteristic that separates American football from rugby and football (aka soccer). But the wonkery is more a function of TV than the sport. What a South African colleague came to appreciate about American football is the way fans can speculate about the next play and the defensive response, like in chess. In person, item 2 becomes a plus.
And as you say at the end, basketball is probably the best team game ever invented. That would be why the college football wonks have been talking about college basketball almost since the college football season started.
I think cricket has a bad press... it's just about a perfect metaphor for life. There are the difficult to understand rules, the feeling that everyone else knows what they're doing and you don't, the titanic battles between two sides bowler and batsmen, finesse (spin) and brute force (fast bowlers). Add to that the fact that you can play for a long time and still get a draw.
But cricket's ultimate appeal in England is that you get to sit outside for days at a time when the weather is good. Usually with a pint, when you're watching, and some good food, and that, for the spectator is bliss.
Quick question: Which code of rugby did you have in mind? Union or League?
As for cricket, reasons why cricket is infinitely superior to baseball are as follows:
1) It is far more varied. In baseball, the aim seems to be always the same. If you are batsman; to try to get a run from the ball that is pitched at you. If you are the thrower; to try to get the guy out.
In cricket, that is not the case, you can be aiming to do anything with the bat from defending a wicket for the draw to trying to skelp the ball out of the field. Similarly, with the ball, you can be doing anything from trying to get the guy out, to letting him get a single, to prevent him hitting it at all.
2) The variation makes for a more tactical game. You dont have a standard field positioning like you do in baseball, you need to adjust it for each batsman and for each specific tactic that you intend to play.
3) You get to stop for tea.