Cricket - Baseball Translator
September 2000
So there was a party at Via Roma, and most of the usual suspects were there. Drinks were drunk, hot dogs and veggie burgers were consumed, and everybody was having a most excellent time.
Then someone innocently asked me (a Brit) and Mike (an Aussie) what the rules of cricket were. Big, big mistake. We described the wickets. "What's that?", came the reply. We waved our hands around describing the boundaries. "Say that again?", came the puzzled look. We desperately tried to describe the notion of making a run and how one batsman could play continuously for hours on end. "Gee, that makes no sense!"
We obviously needed a drawing board. We needed figures. We needed a conversion table. Most of all, we needed a constant supply of beer.
Mike and I drew up a table that converted cricket terminology into baseball terms. The photographs are a little hard to read, so they are typed out in the table below:
| Cricket | Baseball | Explanation |
| 6 | HR | Six runs is eqivalent to a home run |
| 4 | GR2B | A boundary four runs is a ground rule double |
| Catch | Flyball out | Being caught out is called a flyball out |
| Stumped | Tag runner out | Getting stumped at the wicket is tagging the runner |
| G'n'T | Bud | Gin and Tonics replace the classic Budweiser |
| Over | Half-inning | An over is equal to the half inning |
| tea | 7th inning stretch | Time to make a break for the bathroom |
| BBC | Ads | The BBC puts on the news, the Yanks get the commercials |
| Ian Botham (UK) | Dennis Rodman | Both have problems
with pot? (Suggested by dmac): Steve Howe was done for cocaine - Rodman was in basketball |
| Shane Warne (AUS) | Strawberry | Both drink lots of beer |
| Bat on ground | Foot on base | You are safe here |
| WG Grace | Babe Ruth | The legends of the field |
After a titanic two hour struggle, we had managed to get the salient points of cricket across to our hosts. With the potential to bridge the yawning chasm between baseball and cricket players across the Atlantic and Pacific, we put this vital learning tool on the Web.
Who knows? Nobel peace prize, here we come...
Update: Corrections by dmac and jrigby. Ta muchly!
Last updated: Wednesday January 02, 2008