The barbarism of baseball

It's always amazing to me that the United States is constantly accused of cultural hegemony and criticized equally for lacking interest in accepting British/South Asian cultural hegemony.

No, it’s not a case of ethnic discrimination. Call it willful ignorance. Americans have about as much use for cricket as Lapps have for beachwear. The fact that elsewhere in the civilized world grown men dress up like poor relations of Gatsby and venture hopefully into the drizzle clutching their bats invariably mystifies my American friends. And the notion that anyone would watch a game that, in its highest form, could take five days and still end in a draw provokes widespread disbelief among results-oriented Americans.

In a concession to the pace of life in our increasingly Americanized world, one-day international cricket matches were born in the 1970s, and the World Cup features one-day games (which take about seven hours, rather than 30 as in the five-day “test matches”). But that hasn’t made it any more popular here. A billion people might be on tenterhooks around the world for the results of each match, but most American newspapers don’t even adequately report the scores.

Ever since the development of baseball, the ubiquitous and simplified version of the sport, Americans have been lost to the more demanding challenges — and pleasures — of cricket. Because baseball is to cricket as simple addition is to calculus — the basic moves may be similar, but the former is easier, quicker, more straightforward than the latter, and requires a much shorter attention span. And so baseball has captured the American imagination in a way that leaves no room for its adult cousin.

Yes, I'm embarrassed that baseball is so "simple."

KINGSTON, Jamaica, March 22 — The Jamaican police said Thursday that the coach of Pakistan’s cricket team, who was found dead in his hotel room on Sunday after his team lost a critical match in the sport’s World Cup here, had been strangled.

The final pathology report on the coach, Bob Woolmer, 58, blamed “asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation” for his death.

The announcement cast a pall over the games here, and speculation on the motive was rife. One former player with the Pakistani team suggested this week that Mr. Woolmer might have been killed for preparing to report corruption in the game.

The police interviewed and fingerprinted Pakistani players and team officials throughout the day but said they had no suspects and were not investigating anybody in particular.

Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields said there had been no signs of struggle inside the room, indicating that Mr. Woolmer might have known his attacker. He also said that because Mr. Woolmer was a big man, it might have taken more than one person to subdue him.

“It is our belief that those associated with or having access to Mr. Woolmer may have vital information that would assist this inquiry,” Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas said in a statement read by his spokesman, Karl Angell.

Mr. Woolmer, a British citizen who was born in India, was a former batsman for England. He later turned to coaching and was regarded as one of the best.

He was killed after his team lost two straight matches and was eliminated from the tournament, which is being held in the Caribbean for the first time.

World Cup officials said matches would continue in the coming weeks as an honor to Mr. Woolmer, despite the shock that everyone involved in the tournament was feeling. “It’s a challenge for the game, to be resolute and to be strong, to finish the tournament in good spirit,” said Malcolm W. Speed, executive director of the International Cricket Council.

Geez, LaRussa is (rightly so) being excoriated for falling asleep in his car the other night. That pales...