[Other Sport] Do you know who Shohei Ohtani is?

[withdeanwombat]

Yasiel Puig.

 

[Bozza]

A quick google search would suggest that baseball is the most popular sport in nine countries.

Does cricket REALLY have a much bigger geographical spread than baseball? I'm not convinced.

I, for one, have never heard of Virat Kohli (because although I used to follow cricket when I lived in the UK, since moving over here it has fallen completely off my radar).

It's more that everyone in India will know Kohli - that's 1.4bn people immediately.

Your baseball nine are, I think...

Cuba - 11m
Dominican Republic - 11m
Japan - 125m
Nicaragua - 7m
Palau - 0 essentially
Panama - 4m
Puerto Rico - 3m
Taiwan - 23m
Venezuela - 28m

So, that's 212m people. We can add in the US (333m), Canada (39m) and give you Mexico too (127m) and you get to about half the population of India. Kohli then has all the Indians not currently living in India, as well as all cricket-playing nations.

I'm struggling to think there are more people in the world who know Ohtani is than know who Kohli is.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

I thought you meant Shinjiro Otani, who I've obviously heard of but would be nowhere near the most famous person in his chosen sport let alone anything else.

 

[AZ Gull]

It's more that everyone in India will know Kohli - that's 1.4bn people immediately.

Your baseball nine are, I think...

Cuba - 11m
Dominican Republic - 11m
Japan - 125m
Nicaragua - 7m
Palau - 0 essentially
Panama - 4m
Puerto Rico - 3m
Taiwan - 23m
Venezuela - 28m

So, that's 212m people. We can add in the US (333m), Canada (39m) and give you Mexico too (127m) and you get to about half the population of India. Kohli then has all the Indians not currently living in India, as well as all cricket-playing nations.

I'm struggling to think there are more people in the world who know Ohtani is than know who Kohli is.

And that is why I specifically said "geographical spread" rather than population. And I also wouldn't claim that more people have heard of Ohtani than Kohli.

Interestingly, I believe that MLB are making efforts to grow the game in India. A lad (Arjun Nimmala) with Indian heritage was drafted by the Blue Jays at position 20 last year and MLB produced an interesting documentary that looked at his story and followed him on a trip to the mother country (he was actually born in Florida but his parents emigrated from India):-

Arjun Nimmala's MLB journey takes him home to India | 02/04/2024

The story of Blue Jays prospect Arjun Nimmala, who travels from the United States to India and learns of his roots both in sports and family

www.mlb.com

 

[sparkie]

Never heard of him.

 

[Norman Potting]

Baseball - isn't that the game often played at primary school - rounders

 

[Billy in Bristol]

And that is why I specifically said "geographical spread" rather than population. And I also wouldn't claim that more people have heard of Ohtani than Kohli.

Interestingly, I believe that MLB are making efforts to grow the game in India. A lad (Arjun Nimmala) with Indian heritage was drafted by the Blue Jays at position 20 last year and MLB produced an interesting documentary that looked at his story and followed him on a trip to the mother country (he was actually born in Florida but his parents emigrated from India):-

Arjun Nimmala's MLB journey takes him home to India | 02/04/2024

The story of Blue Jays prospect Arjun Nimmala, who travels from the United States to India and learns of his roots both in sports and family

www.mlb.com

Not overlooking the Million Dollar Arm efforts in the early noughties. Didn't one or two get contracts from this?

 

[AZ Gull]

Not overlooking the Million Dollar Arm efforts in the early noughties. Didn't one or two get contracts from this?

Had never heard of that before your post.

Doing a google search, two guys were signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates but although one spent a few years in the minor leagues, neither ever reached the big leagues (although one of them became a WWE wrestler, apparently!).

 

[FCB]

I don't think Ohtani is amongst top 10 most famous sportsmen in the world. There are lot of footballers and basketball players who are more recognisable than him.

What I would say though is that Ohtani is currently the best athlete in the world. Nobody can do what he's doing. He's just unique.

 

[North of Robertsbridge]

Nobody can do what he's doing. He's just unique.

And he has got an otherwise pretty mediocre LAD team into the Division Series, if not further

 

[John Byrnes Mullet]

I thought it was the Sheikh who wants to buy out Tony Bloom.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

So apparently he plays rounders.

 

[London Irish]

It's called the World Series because it was created by a US newspaper called The World. It is their series.

Fancy calling Britain great

 

[London Irish]

It's more that everyone in India will know Kohli - that's 1.4bn people immediately.

Your baseball nine are, I think...

Cuba - 11m
Dominican Republic - 11m
Japan - 125m
Nicaragua - 7m
Palau - 0 essentially
Panama - 4m
Puerto Rico - 3m
Taiwan - 23m
Venezuela - 28m

So, that's 212m people. We can add in the US (333m), Canada (39m) and give you Mexico too (127m) and you get to about half the population of India. Kohli then has all the Indians not currently living in India, as well as all cricket-playing nations.

I'm struggling to think there are more people in the world who know Ohtani is than know who Kohli is.

I think you underestimating Yankee imperialism and their ability to push their cultural product virtually everywhere

 

[Happy Exile]

As baseball is - I think fairly reliably? - thought to have its origins in the Sussex game of stoolball (perhaps not surprisingly given the prominent Sussex links to Pennsylvania and Delaware etc) I looked for a link between Sussex and Los Angeles so we could try and claim some reflected glory. Couldn’t find much, but there’s a copy of the church in Rottingdean in some LA memorial gardens so that’ll have to do.

 

[North of Robertsbridge]

I think you underestimating Yankee imperialism and their ability to push their cultural product virtually everywhere

With respect, I think you may be underestimating America’s popular (in the sense of working class, notwithstanding some rich investores0 culture, like baseball, jazz, bluegrass, zydeco, etc. This really isn’t like Elon Musk or the Facebook guy pushing their money-making crap around the globe

 

[Happy Exile]

I feel like a tradition needs to be fulfilled in this thread: my wife’s cousin has a colleague who’s a season ticket holder at the Dodgers and he says he’s shitehouse

 

[jcdenton08]

I said who da hell is dat??

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

And that is why I specifically said "geographical spread" rather than population. And I also wouldn't claim that more people have heard of Ohtani than Kohli.

Interestingly, I believe that MLB are making efforts to grow the game in India. A lad (Arjun Nimmala) with Indian heritage was drafted by the Blue Jays at position 20 last year and MLB produced an interesting documentary that looked at his story and followed him on a trip to the mother country (he was actually born in Florida but his parents emigrated from India):-

Arjun Nimmala's MLB journey takes him home to India | 02/04/2024

The story of Blue Jays prospect Arjun Nimmala, who travels from the United States to India and learns of his roots both in sports and family

www.mlb.com

In terms of geographic spread, cricket's played at the test level in twelve countries spread across every continent. Off the top of my head I struggle to think of a major sport other than football that is clearly more widely distributed. You can obviously whack the diaspora from various cricketing countries (mainly India really) around the world onto that.

I guess basketball is up there in terms of being played all around the world. Only needing a ball and some sort of net/basket/whatever generally helps with these things. Ice hockey's pretty widely spread within a band around the Northern hemisphere.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I don't think American or not makes any difference. The vast majority of Brits would not be able to name a single baseball player, past or present.

I'd be disappointed if a lot of Brits in the 25-40 age range couldn't name at least some of Roger Clemens, Mike Sciosa, Wade Boggs, Jose Canseco, Don Mattingly, Ken Griffey Junior, Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith and Darryl Strawberry.