[Hip Priest]

Can't see a previous baseball thread.

I first sort of got into baseball when I started rooting the New York Mets during the 1986 world series (purely, I think, based on the fact that they looked like losing but they had players called Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson). I knew absolutely nothing about baseball at all, but I could pick up the occasional American Armed Forces radio broadcast and heard reports. I assume the broadcasts were being transmitted to troops in Germany, but I'm not sure.

I finally got to appreciate the sport fully in the past couple of years thanks to live games on ESPN America and the splendid MLB At Bat app.

Anyway, blah blah blah, its still the Mets for me but they are not doing well, although I really like Jordany Valdespin. I follow the sport pretty avidly now, but I still have a lot to learn. There's a superb Mets blog called Studious Metsimus that I really love.

Baseball baseball baseball.

[Rob Instigator]

I read where the title "World's Series" came from

(people outside the USA always give a lotta grief to us sports because we call everyone "world champions.")

It all started in the baseball. The NY World was a newspaper that was the original sponsor for the championship series to be played between the national and the American leagues. This resulted in the championship being called The World's Series, with the champion referred to as the World's Champion It was never meant to be a brag or a dis on the world outside the USA.

Of course, after a few years, the paper goes under, and people forget where the title came from and now everyone around the world knows that the baseball championship in the USA is called the World Series.

Funny how things come about.

[Hip Priest]

It makes sense anyway, since no other country was likely to be able to field a team that knew how to play.

So any genuine World Series would have been pointless, and the title could safely be handed to America's finest without the need for any troublesome contests.

[demonrail666]

Haha, I recently got interested in baseball, too, and the team I like also happen to be the Mets. (I wonder if it's an English thing, certainly nothing to do with glory hunting). I saw them at Citi Fields last year, losing to the Diamondbacks.

A neat little piece of trivia: baseball very nearly got a proper foothold in England in the 1930s, with football teams like West Ham and Spurs developing professional baseball teams that had strong local support (despite most of their players being either American or Canadian). It all collapsed with the outbreak of WWII and never recovered after that but for a while England demonstrated how the World Series could've become a genuinely global competition.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Dodgers have one of highest payrolls in MLB history, and yet bottom of their division behind teams we usually consider season fodder. Yeah, I don't want to talk about baseball, its the NBA play-offs, and Rob's San Antonia Spurs are going the fuck down inevitably to my Heat!!

Can any team beat the Miami Heat? Only if the 12 Blessed and Holy Apostles learn to play basketball and replace the Indiana Pacers roster

[Hip Priest]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Haha, I recently got interested in baseball, too, and the team I like also happen to be the Mets. (I wonder if it's an English thing, certainly nothing to do with glory hunting). I saw them at Citi Fields last year, losing to the Diamondbacks.

I've thought about the English thing too. I do like the fact that they are in the same city as the most famous team in baseball, and I get to like the minority side. And I have to admit, supporting Manchester City over the past couple of years, great though it has been at times, hasn't been nearly as enjoyable as when we were s***.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

A neat little piece of trivia: baseball very nearly got a proper foothold in England in the 1930s, with football teams like West Ham and Spurs developing professional baseball teams that had strong local support (despite most of their players being either American or Canadian). It all collapsed with the outbreak of WWII and never recovered after that but for a while England demonstrated how the World Series could've become a genuinely global competition.

A shame. Maybe it still can. Countries like the Dominican Republic have very serious firepower in the MLB now. Didn't know that about the English teams though, thanks.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Hip Priest

I've thought about the English thing too. I do like the fact that they are in the same city as the most famous team in baseball, and I get to like the minority side. And I have to admit, supporting Manchester City over the past couple of years, great though it has been at times, hasn't been nearly as enjoyable as when we were s***.

Haha, it's similar to the point I made in the football thread about liking the smaller big city football clubs like City and Everton. But yeah, I totally get the enjoyment of being a bit shit. I've never understood the appeal of supporting a team that wins all the time. West Ham are in a perfect position for me right now. Not losing enough for it to be a worry but not winning enough for me to start feel blase about it whenever they do.

Saying that, before seeing the Mets last year I really had no bias to either them or the Yankees. I was contemplating seeing either club but a mixture of schedule and stadium prices meant I went to see the Mets. But the immediate sense of pessimism that I felt from the fans endeared them to me in a way that I doubt Yankee-style triumphalism ever could. It'd feel a bit too much like supporting Man Utd.