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

[jcdenton08]

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.

Pitt the Younger!

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

So he’s good at rounders. Never heard of him.

 

[ElectricNaz]

I'd be disappointed if a lot of Brits in the 25-40 age range couldn't name Wade Boggs

He LOVES to drink beers on a cross country flight!

Also, Shohei Ohtani is absolutely brilliant at both pitching and hitting, guys insane.

 

[Simster]

Obviously I have because I follow baseball. I think he is probably referenced on the baseball thread for his 50-50 record breaking season.

What a player he is though.

 

[HangletonGull]

Yes because of what’s going on with this 50th homer ball is gone right off

 

[MattBackHome]

@Garry Nelson's Left Foot as you're aware I am a cosmopolitan man-about-town who is able to reference extremely niche persons from all cultures on earth... I've never heard of him.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

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.

Is there one called Babe Ruth? American films always go on and on about him, very annoyingly.

Edit: just seen it appear earlier in thread. Apparently he is - every time they start up, my eyes glaze over and I tune out for a couple minutes.

 

[METALMICKY]

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.

Blimey that's nailed on disappointment for you! I'm older than that demographic only Darryl Strawberry might have registered and some baseball player with Madonna as some point.

If I asked the same age group who is the GOAT of Jon Jones, Georges St Pierre, Demetrious Johnson or Khabib Nurmagomedov I'm under no illusion that most would not have a clue as to what I was referring to.

 

[Han Solo]

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.

Basketball is very likely the number two yes.

Handball, volleyball and rugby are also up there in some widespreadness.

Obviously handball is very eurocentric. It is big in Europe, bigger than most in UK will imagine:

But there's also decent teams from North Africa, Asia and South America, while Australia is a nice punching bag in every tournament.

The strongest challenger against basketball as the second most popular sport is probably volleyball, which is very popular (don't think I've personally watched a game but that doesn't matter) across the world and where every continent seem to be competitive at the international stage.

Cricket and baseball, in terms of widespreadness, are of course rather small sports - they're just popular in a couple of big/loud countries.

 

[bhafc99]

The main problem with MLB is that each team plays about 580 games per season just to get to the playoffs. There’s little jeopardy or excitement when two teams play each other over and over again every day for weeks in a row. It just becomes background. “Tonight, The Winnipeg Goosefarts again take on the Sacramento Scarebears for the 19th game in their 40-game series, with things tied at 9 wins each after two weeks of games…”.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

@Garry Nelson's Left Foot as you're aware I am a cosmopolitan man-about-town who is able to reference extremely niche persons from all cultures on earth... I've never heard of him.

I'm disappointed to hear this. I guess it's all been a lie and you're just not as urbane and cultured as I thought.

 

[Albion my Albion]

Do you think an American is remotely aware of Ben Stokes or Virat Kohli?

No, who are they?

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Basketball is very likely the number two yes.

Handball, volleyball and rugby are also up there in some widespreadness.

Obviously handball is very eurocentric. It is big in Europe, bigger than most in UK will imagine:

View attachment 189802


But there's also decent teams from North Africa, Asia and South America, while Australia is a nice punching bag in every tournament.

The strongest challenger against basketball as the second most popular sport is probably volleyball, which is very popular (don't think I've personally watched a game but that doesn't matter) across the world and where every continent seem to be competitive at the international stage.

Cricket and baseball, in terms of widespreadness, are of course rather small sports - they're just popular in a couple of big/loud countries.

Personally I'm under no illusions about how popular handball is in Europe, it's the sort of thing people with adenoids drone on about despite nobody really caring.

I'd say rugby and cricket are basically as evenly distributed, in that they're popular in places all around the world (about as widely popular as is possible without actually being football, in other words). The difference being that some of the places where cricket is popular have drastically larger populations. I don't really see the argument for arbitrarily dismissing the popularity of cricket just because most of the people who are interested are either on the Indian Subcontinent or members of one of the diaspora from those countries.

Anyway, volleyball's a decent shout. I have actually watched a few games myself, in the olympics in Rio (as in, I was physically there). As I wrote before, only needing a ball and a net does make things easier.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Blimey that's nailed on disappointment for you! I'm older than that demographic only Darryl Strawberry might have registered and some baseball player with Madonna as some point.

If I asked the same age group who is the GOAT of Jon Jones, Georges St Pierre, Demetrious Johnson or Khabib Nurmagomedov I'm under no illusion that most would not have a clue as to what I was referring to.

If you're not in that demographic, your not recognising any of those names doesn't really make any difference to me. I am fully aware that not literally everybody that age watched the Simpsons anyway.

 

[GT49er]

Any chance of changing 'know' to 'care' in the thread title?

 

[AZ Gull]

Any chance of changing 'know' to 'care' in the thread title?

I guess you cared enough to tell the world of your indifference.

 

[GT49er]

I guess you cared enough to tell the world of your indifference.

Yep.

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

I only know because I follow a lot of US based sports journalists for NFL coverage and he gets a lot of attention from them.

 

[bhafc99]

The main problem with MLB is that each team plays about 580 games per season just to get to the playoffs. There’s little jeopardy or excitement when two teams play each other over and over again every day for weeks in a row. It just becomes background. “Tonight, The Winnipeg Goosefarts again take on the Sacramento Scarebears for the 19th game in their 40-game series, with things tied at 9 wins each after two weeks of games…”.

Quick update, in case anyone missed the games last night. The Goosefarts and Scarebears are now tied at 12-12, having played each other six times in the last four days. Obviously this is getting really exciting now, with just another 498 regular season games to go for Winnipeg, but - dramatically - only 497 more for Sacramento.

 

[Simster]

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.

Nah, cricket's geographical spread isn't that big. I'd say it was on a par with rugby although cricket numbers are obviously skewed by the sheer size of India.
By contrast, baseball has a far wider spread. It is number one sport in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic and arguably Japan and the US. It is also a major sport throughout the central American countries, Canada, Mexico, Korea and to a lesser extent, China where it isn't as popular but there is still a professional league. It even has a good following in Australia, a few other South American countries and probably one or two countries I don't know about.
Cricket is played in FAR fewer countries but obviously India is one of those.

tldr;
cricket is played by more people because of India but baseball numbers not far behind and baseball is far more geographically spread.