MovieChat Forums > Pitch (2016) Discussion > From a cricket fan...

From a cricket fan...

posted 8 years ago by tenlegdragon
3 replies | jump to latest

I've never seen baseball before this, but I thought the transition would be easy enough since it's essentially the same sport of hitting a ball with a bat.

But I don't know... Something about this seems very very... stupid, and I'm not sure if it's the sport baseball itself or if it's the idea that ginny is a good baseball player. I mean, she declared already that her fast ball isn't fast. In cricket, fast is like 140+ km, and she's at something like 90km she says.

And her first game was horrible, how is she still selected? Why is she on the team? They're all defending how good she is, but I'm not seeing it, like at all.

I think it's like a prerequisite or something that you be really into baseball, if you have to like this show.

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

[–] taff-29121 8 years ago

Whilst Baseball is similar to Cricket in that it’s a game where the bat hits the ball, that’s where the similarities end. For one thing Baseball is a horizontal bat sport whilst Cricket is a vertical bat sport (where the ball bounces before you hit it) so the batting action is very different. Likewise pitching and bowling use very different angles and in Cricket bowlers generally aim to hit the pitch before the batter hits the ball.

In the 1980s Ian Botham, England’s greatest Cricket all-rounder, visited the LA Dodgers and had some batting practice. By all accounts he did amazingly well for someone who had never played the game, but it wasn’t good enough for the pros. I suspect that given Botham’s natural ability, had he persevered he would have been good enough to make it to triple-A but this would have been at the expense of his stellar Cricket career.

Cricket is the first sport where I believe that a woman will play professionally in a Men’s team at the top level. Some are already knocking at the door, notably the England wicketkeeper Sarah Taylor who in 2015 played Men’s Grade Cricket in Australia (equivalent to Triple-A baseball).

The woman who breaks through will probably be a spin bowler; in Cricket spin bowlers do not have to bowl quickly (typical speeds are 45 mph to 55 mph) in contrast to the top fast bowlers who are in the 85mph to 95mph range. Instead the most important skills for a spinner are accuracy, imparting sufficient spin to the ball (long fingers help) and deceiving the batsman.

For those who aren’t familiar with cricket I’ve linked below to what has become known as “The Ball of the Century”, the first ball that Australian spinner Shane Warne bowled in a test match in England in 1993. Warne is generally held by fans and pundits to be the greatest spin bowler to ever play cricket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXanXViSEOI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_of_the_Century

[–] tenlegdragon 8 years ago

This is what's not making much sense to me. If she had some kind of special bowling ability, that would make sense. Like if she was a chinaman or something, that would make sense. But she doesn't bat on the usual, meaning she's just there to pitch, and she's basically doing the same pitching as everyone else.

And again, what's with the condition of the team. Everyone looks either haggard, middle-aged, overweight, scrawny or some combination of all of that. Is that bad casting or is that an accurate depiction of the average baseball player? And if it's good casting, Ginny, who seems to be in excellent physical condition shouldn't really have much of a problem doing this with the rest of the guys...

I think they're doing a shoddy job of selling this to people who don't know baseball. I mean. In the first three episodes, I've basically gone from "baseball might be all right" to "What the hell is this? And it doesn't make sense, but I'm kind of angry. I actually want to watch this, but the sporting part of the show is rejecting me soooooo hard.

There's no rules. Pitchers actively try to hit players with the ball. I can't tell how the batting or pitching line-up works, it just seems like random people on the field at any point int time. Multiple time outs for any reason. What are the roles for the other members on the team. Ginny throws the ball. Mike talks to people on the field to calm them down...

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.

[–] poit57 8 years ago

I mean, she declared already that her fast ball isn't fast. In cricket, fast is like 140+ km, and she's at something like 90km she says.

To be fair, Ginny claims her fastball tops out at 87 miles per hour. That is equal to 140 kilometers per hour.

And her first game was horrible, how is she still selected? Why is she on the team? They're all defending how good she is, but I'm not seeing it, like at all.

Major League Baseball is the top level of professional baseball. Each of the 30 teams has what is called a "farm system" made up of different leagues for various levels of skill and competition: Rookie, Rookie Advanced, Class A, Class A Advanced, Class AA, and Class AAA.

Ginny spent 5 years in the farm system before being called up to replace an injured player. For most of the baseball season, each team can have a 25 player active roster. In case of an injury, as depicted here, they call up one of the minor league players (usually from AAA level) to temporarily replace the injured player.

Some pitchers struggle in their first appearance in the majors, and some do great their first time out. Even the best pitchers have some bad games sometimes, but apparently Ginny's track record in the minor leagues was consistent enough that she was given this opportunity over other minor league pitchers that the team could have used. This would be the basis for allowing her to remain with the team in the pitching rotation even though her first game was bad.