Baseball question

Originally posted by Zamboner
With all due respect, watching those catches, I can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed unless it's an exaggeration that they are the best catches in cricket history or unless I'm missing some context. The exception being the 2nd catch in that reel. To be honest, that to me looks like a good highlight reel from about a month or two worth of baseball ...[text shortened]... =GrN98pWmhhA

I searched youtube for a best cricket plays of 2012 but nothing turned up.

Don't start with the "all due respect".. we all know what that means :-) Your link is wrong but to be honest when I look at baseball's best catches on youtube it's very similar. You have guys running at full speed or at full extension or jumping and stick out a hand and it sticks. I'm not sure finishing by eating the wall or a dodgy gangsta soundtrack makes the baseball ones any better. What does stand out is inovation and the guy running up the wall to catch was impressive.

Originally posted by Zamboner
With all due respect, watching those catches, I can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed unless it's an exaggeration that they are the best catches in cricket history or unless I'm missing some context. The exception being the 2nd catch in that reel. To be honest, that to me looks like a good highlight reel from about a month or two worth of baseball =GrN98pWmhhA

I searched youtube for a best cricket plays of 2012 but nothing turned up.

Yes, I think you have put the wrong link in.

When I have seen baseball catch clips, the athleticism to get to the ball is very good, but if you can get your hand to the ball at all, it is likely to stick due to the large area of the glove and the way it can wrap round the ball.

You have to appreciate that, in cricket, getting your hand to the ball is only half the job. It has to go much more precisely into the hand for it to stay there. Even simple catches get dropped if your hand is even slightly out of position.

I don't think it is a question of one being better than the other, but as I said before, even a fly ball (see I'm learning) can be dropped in cricket. I think, from what I have seen, in cricket the actual catching process (i.e. ball entering hand and staying there) is harder, but the speed of the ball, and the area to be covered, is greater in baseball.

Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper
It looks like they're not allowed to just hit it straight into the stands? Does it have to bounce in field first?

No.

The batsman misses out on an additional 2 runs if that happens.

Originally posted by Zamboner
You might be right, there might be some difference, but there's no doubt it takes a lot of cajones to field in cricket with bare hands. I know I wouldn't want to do it.

When I was at university, there were a few Americans each year who came over to spend three terms studying. Most of the more sporty types were determined to have a go at cricket and we welcomed them (although I don't remember any of them being good enough to get into the college side for anything other than friendly games). Without exception, they found cricket a sobering experience and quite a lot more perilous than they had expected!

Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper
You're saying the "pitcher" can bounce the ball to the batter (hitter)??

If he doesn't pitch the ball (i.e. bounce it), the bowler will get hit out of the ground repeatedly. If these full tosses are deemed to be "beamers" - deliberate attempts to hit the batsman on the head on the full - then the bowler, after being warned, will not be permitted to bowl any more in that innings.

The fact that the bowler pitches (bounces) the ball before it reaches the batsman creates a lot of interesting realities:

The ball can swing before it pitches

The "length" of the delivery [how far down the wicket it pitches] is crucial and affects the techniques used by the batsman

The nature of the bounce when it pitches

The amount of speed lost due to it pitching (usually negligible)

The lateral movement of the ball at the moment it pitches...

because of the nature of the wicket

because of spin applied to the ball

because of the orientation of the seam on the ball

The ball can swing after it pitches...
even if it wasn't swinging before it pitched
it can swing in the same direction it was swinging before it pitched
it can swing in the other direction
it can swing and then turn when it pitches

So you have the following variables: speed, flight (including drift and dip), spin, swing, length, seam, bounce, turn.

edit: maybe a better way of categorizing those variables is...

FLIGHT [speed, line, swing (and in some cases things like drift, and dip)]
BOUNCE [length, height (of bounce), spin/turn, seam]

Originally posted by FMF
If he doesn't pitch the ball (i.e. bounce it), the bowler will get hit out of the ground repeatedly. If these full tosses are deemed to be "beamers" - deliberate attempts to hit the batsman on the head on the full - then the bowler, after being warned, will not be permitted to bowl any more in that innings.

The fact that the bowler pitches (bounces) the ball e cases things like drift, and dip)]
BOUNCE [length, height (of bounce), spin/turn, seam]

One of the other major differences is that the 'strike zone' in baseball is much smaller than the same concept in cricket. Though bowlers are penalised for wides, it is possible to bowl a legitimate ball that pitches and reaches to head height ('a bouncer'😉, one that pitches on your toes and tries to get to the wicket under your bat ('a yorker'😉, one that doesn't bounce ('a full toss', though that, as FMF says, is normally a mistake)' and anywhere in between. You can also bowl a ball that goes behind a players back, though that is usually penalised, and much wider to the other side.

Of course, the big diffence is, you don't have to hit it, or even try to, and there is no penalty for not doing so unless it hits the stumps, or your legs on the way to the stumps.

I shudder to think that batsman once played on uncovered pitches and used to face bowlers chucking down bouncers on a pitch at 90 miles an hours and did not wear a helmet. And plenty of the batsmen did not duck under it, but would hook the shot out of the ground. Miss it, and you faced ending up with a face only a mother could love.

In fact, the use of helmets was a relatively recent phenomenon in cricket. Watch cricket from the 80s, and you will still see plenty of batsmen coming to the crease without one.

If you mentioned 'The best ball ever delivered in cricket' many would plump for this.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LeLn8sEAKfE

If you watch it closely, you will see that the ball is released and is going to be going to the right hand side of of the stumps. However, it then swings in the air, so that it goes even further to the right and pitches quite a long way to right of the stumps. At this point, the batman's instincts are all telling him that the ball is going to miss the stumps to the right.

However the bowler is applying so much spin to the ball, and the area where it pitches has been worn by the bowlers footmarks (from bowing at the other end, as in cricket it swaps over every six balls) that it ends up hitting the very left hand edge of the stumps. And although Shane Warne is a slow bolwer, the ball is still coming at about 80kph.

You can see it in super slo mo here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdvxrqFmdE0

Originally posted by FMF
If he doesn't pitch the ball (i.e. bounce it), the bowler will get hit out of the ground repeatedly. If these full tosses are deemed to be "beamers" - deliberate attempts to hit the batsman on the head on the full - then the bowler, after being warned, will not be permitted to bowl any more in that innings.

The fact that the bowler pitches (bounces) the ball ...[text shortened]... e cases things like drift, and dip)]
BOUNCE [length, height (of bounce), spin/turn, seam]

Also the bowler can bowl from a variety of places ( within reason ). Normally the choices are over the wicket ( for a right armer to the left of the wicket ) or around the wicket ( for a right armer to the right of the wicket ). The bowler must state which before he bowls the ball but can change as he pleases. In the most recent IPL T20 competition I saw something I have never seen before. Normally a bowler will release the ball in his final stride with his foot straddling the popping crease. But West Indian fast bowler Kieron Pollard would occasionally decide to release the ball on the previous stride to introduce further variation. I think he got a wicket that way but I can't find it on youtube.

Also, because the ball pitches, the preparation of the pitch plays an important role in the whether the batting or bowling is the most important aspect of the game, and for bowling whether or not the pitch favours the fast bowlers or the spin bowlers. And for a test match which lasts 5 days the characteristics of a pitch can change during the course of the match. Groundsmen are notorious for preparing pitches with characteristics which favour the home side. For example the West Indies are historically a team which favours fast bowlers, while India are historically a team which favours spin bowlers. There was a period in the 80s/90s when the West Indian pace attack was absolutely brutal, they had strength and strength in depth and it was a relentless assault of the ball fizzing past the batsman's ears. On a good bowling wicket they would skittle teams out for ridiculously low scores.

Originally posted by thaughbaer
Also the bowler can bowl from a variety of places ( within reason ).

I used to occasionally bowl a ball from well short of the popping crease, sending it down as a 22 or 23 yard delivery [or whatever it was] rather than the usual 20 or so yards from crease to batsman. This sometimes succeeded in deceiving the batsman with its flight, being rather akin to The Slower Ball. On other occasions it just got treated as a drain ball and was cleaved to the boundary ~ necessitating a mid pitch double teapot from me followed by grumpy fiddling with my scapegoated boots.