withdeanwombat
Well-known member
Yasiel Puig.
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[Other Sport] Do you know who Shohei Ohtani is?
- Thread starter Garry Nelson's Left Foot
- Start date
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 believe in Joe Hendry
- Oct 4, 2003
- 12,084
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
@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
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
Norman Potting
Well-known member
Baseball - isn't that the game often played at primary school - rounders
Billy in Bristol
Well-known member
Not overlooking the Million Dollar Arm efforts in the early noughties. Didn't one or two get contracts from this?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
AZ Gull
@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
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!).
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.
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
Well-known member
John Byrnes Mullet
Global Circumnavigator
I thought it was the Sheikh who wants to buy out Tony Bloom.
Cheshire Cat
The most curious thing..
So apparently he plays rounders.
London Irish
Well-known member
Fancy calling Britain great
London Irish
Well-known member
I think you underestimating Yankee imperialism and their ability to push their cultural product virtually everywhere
- Apr 19, 2018
- 2,135
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.
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North of Robertsbridge
Well-known member
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
- Apr 19, 2018
- 2,135
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
- Oct 17, 2008
- 14,542
I said who da hell is dat??
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.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
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.
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.