kimbofo

Baseball in Canada — just like cricket on acid

Place: Toronto, Canada.
Date: April 29, 2012.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

I'm not much of a one for sports, but to experience a new culture there's no better way than attending a sporting fixture. If you're in Melbourne, you go to the MCG to watch an Australian Rules Football game (or Test cricket match); if you go to Canada you check out the baseball at the Rogers Centre in the shadow of the CN Tower.

We saw the Toronto Blue Jays defeat the Seattle Mariners, 7-2. And despite not having played baseball (or softball) since I was at school, I had a basic grasp of the rules and really enjoyed watching the match. The best way I can describe it is that it was a bit like cricket on acid.

I also quite enjoyed watching the crowd — quite smallish and very family-orientated — who behaved a bit like a cricket crowd, doing the Mexican wave and slow-clapping when the action was thought to be too slow.

The venue felt quite small — but then any sports arena is small when you compare it to the MCG. We had great seats, quite close to the action, near the batting pitch. It was a Sunday afternoon — the match began at 1.07pm and lasted several hours — but it was all undercover and despite the chilly air outside the dome, it was snug and warm inside. (This was important: I caught a horrendous cold on the journey over and spent the first four days of our trip feeling quite sorry for myself: thank goodness for cold and flu medication, boxes of Strepsils and Vitamin C tablets is all I can say.)



The branding was pretty awesome, too: you couldn't move for Blue Jay tops, baseball caps and beer cans! Now there's an idea for the Australian Cricket Board!

'Fire in Babylon': How the West Indies cricket team rose to power

The names of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Michael Holding dominated my childhood and teenage years. For 15 years, the West Indies cricket team ruled the world. They were the only team that toured Australia that everyone wanted to watch.

But it wasn't always that way.

This documentary, which I watched on DVD last night, reveals how they climbed to the top, with, I might add, a little help from Australian media mogul Kerry Packer, who apparently gave them a kick up the backside and told them he'd boot them out of his World Series Cricket competition if they didn't lift their game. The rest, they say, is history.

(Dad, if you are reading this post, you've got to see this film, you'll love it!)

Big Warnie

The Ashes is one of the most fiercely contested competitions in cricket, and with the 2009 Series just around the corner, this video - produced, I assume, for the 2005 series - has given me a real laugh. But maybe you need to be an Aussie who understands cricket to appreciate the humour...