If It's Not Baseball, Maybe It's Cricket
PLUS: BIG-LEAGUE BASEBALL THRIVES ON INTERNATIONAL TERRAIN
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Reader Reacts
“A League of Their Own is one of my favorite sports movies. There were so many great lines and scenes, and I’ve watched it many times, and will watch again. Thanks for mentioning the book.”
— Brian G, Long Island, NY
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, paid $25 million a year, is about get a five-year contract extension from the 30 team owners — not because his expanded playoffs and new rules helped MLB but because he raised revenue to some $11 billion annually . . .
Dumbell of the Year award: Seattle outfielder Jarred Kelenick, out indefinitely after breaking his foot while kicking a water cooler in frustration . . .
Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, en route to a rare 300-strikeout season, is the second player in the All-Star Era (since 1933) to strike out 160 batters and allow 80 hits or fewer before the All-Star Break, joining Max Scherzer from his Cy Young season of 2017 . . .
Oft-injured Boston southpaw Chris Sale, on the 60-day IL after suffering a stress reaction in his shoulder blade, will be out at least until August . . .
Although Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. finally joined his father as Home Run Derby champions, he got nothing for the contest in 2019 despite hitting a record 91 home runs at Progressive Field . . .
At his current pace, Shohei Ohtani could threaten Aaron Judge’s AL record of 62 home runs . . .
Speaking of the win-starved Ohtani, his Angels haven’t reached the playoffs since 2014, won a postseason game since 2009, or won a pennant since 2002, when they rode the wild-card to the world championship . . .
All-Star Game MVP Elias Diaz, in the middle year of a three-year, $14.5 million Colorado pact, could be trade bait for his rebuilding team . . .
Diaz limped to a .228 batting average and made 11 errors, more than any other catcher, with the Rockies last season before his change of fortune in 2023.
Leading Off
Cricket is Digging in Across the USA
By AJ Mithen
As the second most watched sport in the world behind soccer, cricket has long coveted a foothold the United States market. It’s starting to find it now, through the shortest version of the game known as ‘T20’.
I won’t go into the logistics of how cricket works, or we’ll be here for a decade. Much like baseball it’s a confusing rabbit hole of different terms, rules (both written and unwritten), quirks, uniforms and equipment that makes absolutely no sense if you haven’t grown up with it. Maybe Try this explainer video and see how you go.
Probably the simplest way to describe T20 cricket is that two teams of 11 play one inning of 20 overs (that’s 120 balls/pitches), with the goal to score as many runs as they can with their 10 outs. The highest amount of runs scored wins.
T20 games are generally run and done in around 2.5 hours and are packed with the usual fare for sport these days - fireworks, lightshows and music during play, players mic’d up and wearing cameras, constant action and off field entertainment to attract families to the game.
Your sporting traditionalist may well hate every bit of how that sounds, but rest assured, kids and their parent's wallets are all over it.
Right now, we’re in the middle of the first ever season of ‘Major League Cricket’ (MLC). There are six teams: the Seattle Orcas, Washington Freedom, San Francisco Unicorns, Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York and the Texas Super Kings.
These teams were picked because of the large expat South Asian communities (from India, Pakistan and surrounds), where cricket is a religion as much as anything else.
https://twitter.com/SFOUnicorns/status/1681746822497288193?s=20
The signs have been there that the subcontinental diaspora was a vast untapped market in the USA. In 2015, cricketing icons Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne held a three-game 'Cricket All-Stars’ T20 exhibition series played at Dodger Stadium, Citi Field and Minute Maid park.
Lineups were filled with renowned retired cricket players from around the world, with India’s Tendulkar and Australian Warne each captaining a side.
Some 86,351 people attended the games, contests which had nothing meaningful riding on them and were just a little bit of ‘hit and giggle’.
It showed just how much work Major League Baseball has to do to engage and attract that crowd, sports fanatics who just aren’t coming across to baseball regardless of how similar aspects of the two sports are.
India is the world power in cricket and home of the Indian Premier League T20 competition, a product distributed worldwide and valued at around $11 billion.
Owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) clubs took stakes in four of the six MLC teams, and the league is funded by an initial injection of $120 million.
These are serious amounts of money being put down to get MLC up and established, and potentially eating into baseball’s market share. They wouldn’t be getting involved like this unless they’d seen there’s money to be made.
Funds are going to cricket facilities in Texas and California which would be the envy of countries where cricket is a national code.
It was interesting to see the changes Major League Baseball made to speed up the game and keep the ball in play more often. MLB understands they can’t lose younger audiences and as attention spans and sport consumption continues to change rapidly, we can bank on even more ‘radical’ changes coming to the game we love soon.
Cricket has already gone through this identity crisis, and it’s how T20 was born. The shortest version of the game has quickly supplanted all other forms of cricket to be the dominant (and most lucrative) one.
In June next year the United States is hosting the T20 World Cup, and you can bank on big crowds showing up again. It’s a canny move by the International Cricket Committee, the sport’s governing body to bring the carnival stateside.
The push to drive the game into the USA is well and truly on. It’s preposterous to suggest it’s a direct competitor for baseball right now, but as demographics change and people continue to look for different things in their sporting fare, another option for people is something MLB needs to be mindful of.
AJ Mithen is an Australian sportswriter, co-host of the podcast ‘A Sporting Discussion’ and regular guest on ABC radio and RRR FM. He loves to give space to the sporting stories the mainstream forgets - and he’ll never rest until Australian baseball gets the coverage it deserves. He’s always up for a chat on Twitter @AJMithen.
Cleaning Up
Major League Baseball Becomes True International League
By Dan Schlossberg
The namesake of Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander – President Grover Cleveland – also had a baseball connection. After the 1888 season, he greeted a group of stars recruited by Albert Spalding for a six-month barnstorming tour that included stops in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, California, and Hawaii (then the Sandwich Islands) before landing in Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Italy, Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, London, and even Paris before the Eiffel Tower was finished.
More than a century later, baseball is becoming an international game again.
The Cubs and Cardinals just completed the second London Series, following the lead of the Yankees and Red Sox in 2019, and games will return to London in 2024 and 2026, with a Paris series added for good measure in 2025. In addition, the first official games of 2024 will be played in Seoul, South Korea — bringing big-league baseball to that country for the first time. The Dodgers and Padres will play on March 20 and 21.
Games that count have also been played in Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Puerto Rico (technically a U.S. territory despite a strong local sentiment for statehood or independence).
Generating attendance, as well as interest, is a key factor in the game’s global reach.
This year’s two London games drew a combined 110,227 — more than any two-game set in the U.S. this year — even though the London stadium’s baseball capacity had been reduced under a new seating configuration.
“Hopefully we can inspire some kids to go buy a glove and a bat and go in the backyard and play a little bit,” said St. Louis outfielder Lars Nootbaar after returning home.
Potential sites for other games in Europe include Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands. Another overseas spot under consideration is Israel, which once had a six-team league of its own (with former players Art Shamsky, Ron Blomberg, and Ken Holtzman three of the managers).
In addition to its foreign flings, Major League Baseball will be played next year in Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field and have assorted other one-night stands, including the Little League Classic in Williamsport, PA. The Field of Dreams game is on hold to allow reconstruction on its Iowa site.
Don’t be surprised if a game isn’t soon scheduled for Paterson, NJ, home of Hinchliffe Stadium. Built in 1932, it was used by Negro Leagues teams and future Hall of Famers before falling into disrepair. It has since been restored, at a cost of $100 million, and houses the Jersey Jackals, a Frontier League team that relocated from Little Falls.
There used to be a saying that fans can’t tell the players without a scorecard. Now they can’t tell the teams without a map. If that helps make the game more popular, it’s not a bad idea.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is author of 40 books and many baseball articles. His e.mail is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
“I definitely heard it. I never experienced anything like that. But I was trying to focus on my at-bat.”
— Future free agent Shohei Ohtani on All-Star Game fans shouting “Come to Seattle”
The National League has now won just four All-Star Games in 26 years . . .
Atlanta All-Stars Matt Olson and Ronald Acuna, Jr. are both on pace for 87+ extra-base hits — a mark teammates have reached simultaneously five times: Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth (1927 and 1928 Yankees), Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio (1936 Yankees), Andres Galarraga and Ellis Burks (1996 Rockies), and David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez (2004 Red Sox) . . .
Thanks to a late start coupled with the absence of Aaron Judge and Mike Trout, the 2023 All-Star Game pulled a record-low TV share of 3.9, with only seven million viewers watching despite zero competition from other sports . . .
J.D. Martinez, unwanted as a free agent last winter, has now been an All-Star for the Tigers, Red Sox, and Dodgers . . .
Oakland alumni who made it to the All-Star team after leaving the A’s: Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, and Liam Hendriks . . .
At the time of his election as the National League’s starting second baseman, Luis Arraez had a batting average of .396 — just 148 points above the league’s average . . .
A final thought: did Bud Selig actually call inter-league play “a gift to our fans?”
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.