This thread contains comments on Ben Wright's Article "Baseball in Britain - Fantasy Plays its Part", which was posted in the Cafe's Articles section on December 12, 2008. The full article can be read here.
That was a fun and entertaining read! Thanks for sharing it!
Yes doctor, I am sick. Sick of those who are spineless. Sick of those who feel self-entitled. Sick of those who are hypocrites. Yes doctor, an army is forming. Yes doctor, there will be a war. Yes doctor, there will be blood.....
i can definitely see how it'd be a tough sport to follow from the UK with the time change. i was in Europe for a month in the middle of the 2007 season and I'd hop online in the morning to check scores and see west coast games still being played. anyways, i enjoyed the article, thanks for writing it up.
Fighting Platypi wrote:Oh, and thanks for the editing - I doubt i'll ever get the 'z' instead of 's' spelling down completely. My mind just doesn't consider it.
Or maybe i'm just a stubborn, ex-pat Brit.
No worries at all, I tried to touch as little as possible with the editing, and besides, we get a lot of "colour", "flavour", and things like that from our Canadian friends , so it's certainly no worry at all. Us Americans speak and spell weird.
I do bet it's hard to follow baseball over there though. I thought it was bad enough here already. I'm in Texas, Central Time Zone, and west coast games don't start until 9 PM and end sometime after midnight. I can't imagine the game starting (!) at midnight.
Yes doctor, I am sick. Sick of those who are spineless. Sick of those who feel self-entitled. Sick of those who are hypocrites. Yes doctor, an army is forming. Yes doctor, there will be a war. Yes doctor, there will be blood.....
Heh, I was between university and work in 2001, so I was able to stay up for the WS games without having to get up early the next day and be productive.
What usually happened with my baseball watching is that I would stay up for the start of the MLB show on Five I mentioned, enjo ythe studio build-up and promptly fall asleep somewhere close to the bottom of the 1st inning!
You get into the habit of checking for 1:05pm EST games each morning while checking how your team did. These games were perfect - 6:05pm local time - just right to watch after work with your dinner on your lap. Of course, these games were only available if you had an MLB.tv or sometimes on the premium cost NASN channel. No terrestrial tv channel would broadcast baseball anywhere close to the prime time spots.
Like I said, you had to work (and generally pay!) hard to watch the live games in Britain.
I know when I spent a year abroad in France, it was a killer to wake up at ungodly hours to keep up with my hometown Lakers. The same thing happened when I had my usual Summer vacation in the UK before. Oddly, nowadays, I wake up at 4-5am to catch the Premiership. So, I know how it feels to catch up on a massive sporting event on the other end of the Pond.
Last time I remember, it was a Dodgers home game against the Braves at 3am Monday morning while WWE Summerslam was on at the same time on Sky Sports 1. My impression is the baseball media do a great job of keeping baseball fans there up to speed.
As for cricket, it's murder for me to watch it. My cousin in England loves it to death, but she had a hard time explaining it to me and it was best to find out playing it. I grew to like cricket, but only to play it. Every now and then I catch England play, but more or less when The Ashes come around.
If you're in the UK again, or anywhere in the cricket playing world, see if you can catch a 20/20 game and see what you think of that. Each team only gets 20 innings (120 bowls) so the emphasis is very much on getting the points in the bag and dismissing the bowlers as opposed to hanging around at the wicket as long as you can or waiting for the new ball. It's a much 'sexier' version of the game and a lot easier to watch. TV companies love it too. The old crusties in their ties and straw hat sitting in the members section hate it ... but they tend to have 5 days to wait around for a result.
Big on your dedication to the Premiership - love that league.
There's actually a Liverpool fan that used to post here, name is roninmedia. I've seen a few more United fans other than me here.
Unless Liverpool get some depth at the January deadline, especially in form of a winger, they'll fall short. It's United's or Chelsea's to lose, but neither one looks convincing at this point either.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by WebHamster » Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:20 am 
Thanks for sharing it! 
, so it's certainly no worry at all. Us Americans speak and spell weird. 
to your Man Utd sig though!
