Curling is just too fast-paced for me.

As for cricket: it is definitely an acguired taste. But there is something oddly attractive about the game. My first experience with cricket came by way of watching on my first trip to Britain. We had the game on in the room (I gave up trying to find CNN)for backgroud noise and soon I was staring at the tube in a cricket-induced trance. Maybe I’m prewired to like foreign sport, but I still find the game oddly fascinating.

Besides the destruction of the Universe?

Absolutely. Michael Jordan’s inability to hit .200 in AA ball with Birmingham testifies to that, although some sportswriters, (the San Francisco Chronicle‘s appallingly ignorant Henry Schulman is one) still don’t understand that.

It’s quite obvious, but it bears repeating that different sports require different abilities. Twenty years ago, I was an excellent cyclist, but I’ve never been able to throw a baseball even 50 mph. I consistently ran sub-40 minute 10-K races until I experienced some back problems, but I would have been an absolute joke at any distance under a mile.

I think the myth that cricket players are not athletes arose from the fact that untill the satellite TV exposure began years ago was because the only time most Americans were exposed to cricet it was by watching middle aged ex-pats playing for fun in the park. The vast majority of proffesional baseball players are outstanding athletes and their are only two positions where fat players can still compete. Pitchers who are not expected to produce offensive results at the bat and those one dimensional or old who are allowed to hang on because of the evil invention of the designated hitter.

I think the main reason that cricket will never catch on in America, except by those who have immigrated here, is because the length of the contests. I don’t think the rules and traditions are any more complex then those in baseball but many Americans complain about the length of baseball games, let alone cricket.

” It seems that I remember seeing a cricket ball being slowly thrown to the batter. Is the faster version something new?”

Well playing in the 1st Eleven at school in the late 50′s certainly saw the occasional split lip, lost tooth and even a broken nose when the pace bowler found a spot on a drying pitch to get the ball to lift right into the batsman’s face. Although not at today’s speeds certainly 75+ mph.

And no, there was no lovey dovey democracy in bowler’s mind.

I’m sure melk will attest to this.