Why America hates football

[majic]

Originally posted by thrila
Only about 50% of the players are from England in the Premiership.  Does that mean the FA cup  can be renamed to the World Cup?   Yay!:)
 

You could if there wasn't another World Cup with a higher level of play.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by majic
You may have noticed that the best players come here to play.  For example, the White Sox just acquired (Cuban) Jose Contreras from the Yankees.  This gives them players from seven different countries (including all the ones you mentioned).   Even the manager is Venezuelan.

So... players from seven different countries playing a sport which is staged in only one or two countries equates to "the World"?

Thrila - Milwall? Bloody 'ell. I'd stay home if Brighton and Hove Albion were visiting, never mind Milwall. Watch out for F-Troop.

[thrila]

When i said i hope there will be no trouble, i really meant i hope their wont be  much trouble.  With Plymouth being new to div 1 i'm sure there will be plenty of supporters trying to prove themselves.  There is going to be a very large police presence.


I'm a net geek and built like one too, no fighting for me.

[Dnil]

cause its fact.

[majic]

Originally posted by beet1e
So... players from seven different countries playing a sport which is staged in only one or two countries equates to "the World"?
 

You know, if we staged a soccer tournament and termed the winner "World Champion", then you might have a point.  As it stands, the team that wins the World Series is the best team on Earth, bar none.  

btw- the 7 different country thing was just on one team (just happens to be the one I follow).  You'll find MLB players from just about any country in the world (hey, that word again) that has baseball played at a high level.

Come to think of it, you should be *****ing about the NBA.  They have a "World Champion" and nowadays, our Olympic type teams can't even beat the Italians.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by majic
You know, if we staged a soccer tournament and termed the winner "World Champion", then you might have a point.  As it stands, the team that wins the World Series is the best team on Earth, bar none.  

I still don't think the "World" Series is a valid name for a tournament which is played only in North America and which is not open to any other countries. There are two leagues - American League and National League - which one of those might Germany be allowed to play in, were they to field a team?

I had a baseball book describing how the "World" Series worked (before all this inter-league play started) and it described how each team played all the others, home and away for a total of (IIRC) 162 games. How could that be possible if teams from other parts of the world were allowed to play?

My book described the "designated hitter" rule variation of the National league and how the last 7 games of the "World" Series would see both sets of rules used. The point being that for all those games to be played to arrive at "World Champion", the whole contest has to be staged in North America.

The soccer World Cup deserves its title because teams from anywhere in the world can compete - same thing for Rugby and Cricket. Same thing for card games like Bridge. But not baseball. There is no World tournament, within the accepted parlance of the word "World".

Regards,
Beet1e. (World champion poppy grower - in my back garden at any rate)

[majic]

Well, er, you kind of made my next point for me.  Since travel restrictions make it impractical for games to be played all over, they would have to be played here, where the money is.




I almost touched on this in my last post.  I think that eventually MLB will expand to more and more countries.  Mexico, parts of South America, Japan, etc.  Travel times now make that difficult.  (They have already played regular season games in Japan.)

[beet1e]

Originally posted by majic
Well, er, you kind of made my next point for me.  Since travel restrictions make it impractical for games to be played all over, they would have to be played here, where the money is.

What does money have to do with it? And why would a tournament which is truly a World tournament have to be staged in the USA? Read Curval's post a while back - the USA is not the world, much though some people would like to think it is.

Cricket is played on a World stage, in which even less well off countries like India and Pakistan are able to field teams. Football too - the World Cup sees teams coming from obscure African countries like Cameroon! Money has nothing to do with it.