Baseball or cricket? Alex Ferguson compares American and English traditions

Baseball and cricket are both big games. One on this side of the Atlantic, and one on the other.

Our US sports writer Alex Ferguson was in California earlier in the season for a San Diego Padres game at Petco Park, and was at Edgbaston on Wednesday for the first day of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia. He relays his experience…

We all know the differences between baseball and cricket, so I’m not going to bore you to death with an essay about the differences between the two sports, save for sharing this story for you.

A friend of mine was over from the States once and went to see Surrey play some county cricket at the Oval on a hot day, and he turned to me and said mid-way through the afternoon session: “Why do the catchers wear two mitts?” For once, I was silent.

Anyway, this visitor watching two sports in a matter of months knew about mitts, balls and even scoring, but let’s be honest, that will either make or break your day out.

Firstly, there’s the music. In San Diego, every home player’s walk to the plate has to be accompanied by music, making a baseball game like being in a bad nightclub on an even worse seaside resort. And remarkably, it’s quite good fun.

I am thankful that during Test cricket every arrival to the crease isn’t heralded by “The Only Way Is Up!” – and every boundary isn’t accompanied by Beethoven’s Ninth. So if you like your music accompanying a game, make sure you go and watch some baseball. You’ll love it.  

And keeping with the music subject, Americans aren’t big chanters at baseball games. Sure, we had a few “beat LA” chants at the Petco aimed at their Los Angeles rivals, with the sort of vehemence you don’t normally expect at a baseball game.

At Edgbaston, our choir – also some beers to the good – was from the Eric Hollies Stand and became louder as the day went on. And because England were having their way with their principle torturers of last winter, the crowd was almost in celebratory mode.

In baseball, you can be one out away and 11 runs to the good, you can still lose. At Edgbaston, no-one was losing. It was party-time.

Speaking of parties, a friend of mine who watched Thursday’s activities said that Edgbaston “sounded like a football match”, and he was about right. And although stick is given out to everybody at football matches, the England boo-boys preferred to focus on Mitchell Johnson, the Australian fast bowler and scourge of England’s batting line-up at Lord’s, with some of the songs generally involving waving and some unrepeatable language.

But if I had done the same sort of song at Scott Baker, the Dodgers’ pitcher, I would have looked like an alien. American fans don’t like to harass the opposition – unless it’s in New York or Boston. It’s not classy, apparently. And there’s the fact that MLB players generally end up playing for around five teams in their league careers, so hatred and loyalty aren’t quite as built up.

To a few San Diego Padres fans, it was important to buck the trend of wearing baseball caps, t-shirts and shorts by dressing up as Friar Tuck (the Padres’ nickname is ‘The Friars’, after all). 

At Edgbaston, Petco Park was made to look tame as Aussies wearing corked hats supped beverages alongside Englishmen dressed up as umpires and Teletubbies with Hawaiian shirts. And that was despite the interrupting rain!

“That was a tame day,” an Edgbaston veteran said to me. “You wait until later in the week. It’ll be like Hallowe’en in here.”

One thing that unites sets of supporters is their loving of big shots. Boundaries at Edgbaston were greeted by a polite applause or standing ovation (depending on who you supported), while baseball fans become nearly hysterical when a home run is hit, falling into the fences and into the arms of lucky fans. Especially when it’s against L.A.

As for someone getting out? Let’s just say that the ‘cricket out’ garners a bigger high or low than a baseball fly-out and strikeout, shall we?

And for a motormouth like me, baseball and cricket are great because you can chat during the games. While sports like football demand concentration and tennis bans it, the soundtrack of cricket is the hubbub of conversation, rising and giggling as the day wore on.

Fans discussed everything from business matters to more important things like the upcoming football season to whether certain England batsmen deserved their place back in the squad.

It was so early in the season for Padres fans to have an opinion on their baseball team (and they tended to be calmer about their team’s prospects) so they preferred to concentrate on more important things like sunscreen application and $7 Michelob Ultras.

Both Petco Park and Edgbaston have warranted a place in my heart this summer, but for different reasons. But for the simple act of chilling out and watching a game, you can’t go wrong with either baseball or cricket depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on.