Ahira's Hangar

Rounders is a British game played by schoolgirls. You hit the ball and run round the bases. I guess that's where the name comes from. Perhaps Netball (another game played by schoolgirls) was the idea behind Basketball as well?

American basketball was invented by Aldolph Rupp around 1886 and involved shooting a ball through a hollowed out peach basket on a 12 foot pole-I've never heard any connection to netters or whatever you called it-having played the sport for 40 years and coaching it for 6 and well as battered knees, two broken fingers, a broken hand and assorted scars I think American b-ball is a little bit tougher than some girly game.

Seems like the less I mess with my fantasy (baseball) teams the better they do. Of course the second I traded Granderson he got hot...

Well, baseball players could definately be called wimpy in comparison to athletes in many other sports. As a fan I am very willing to admit that.

Most of the posts about baseball make as much sense to me if they were written in Cantonese, but is a fly paper fielder someone who can catch the ball quite well?

Yes, catches the ball and hangs on to it like he has super glue in his glove.

The main things about baseball in America right now:
* too many players make way to much money for too little performance (main problem with my local team, the Detroit Tigers)
* many many of the top members of yesterday's "generation" such as Barry Bonds (hitter) and Roger Clemens (pitcher) have been caught doing banned substances such as steroids and human growth hormone to extend their careers and pad their stats - Clemens has also been caught out having a variety of mistresses, though the one that really pissed people off was a long term affair (ten years) with an underage girl (started when she was something like 15 and he was a 28 year old married father of two). Well, Bonds has mistresses as well, but his were at least all grown women!

So the old sport is really giving itself a couple of black eyes right now...

But there is hope in a cleaner, brighter future with a long term doormat team like aTOMic's Rays suddenly having one of the best records in the sport, fueled by great performances of young players, who are quite probably drug clean (due to much greater testing now). As a fan, I am quite pleased by this - a young team who plays well for a lot less money than the "stars" of the sport, and without any steroid scandals.

Having only watched a couple of games on cable tv, all my baseball 'knowledge' comes from movies like 'eight men out' and that one with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon. Oh, and 'Field of Dreams' I remember too. I wonder what it is about baseball that has taken such a hold on the national consciousness. I don't think gridiron has such a tremendous grip on so many people, though I could be completely wrong. I mean, when I first heard the term 'short stop' I actually wondered if it was possible that being short in stature made you ideal for whatever a short stop needs to do! I'm a rugby league fan so brains are not at a premium!

I think that it is perhaps the rich tradition that makes baseball so popular. Baseball and hockey and college football have very deep roots (at least here where I live) - with much longer traditions than the other big sports.

Rugby is a crazy macho sport! They used to play it on a field across the street from my husband's apartment back when we were dating. Wild stuff!

So is college football more popular than the nfl? I think I remember Bill Bryson writing about the Nebraska college team and how seriously everyone took it; he said something like they would bring flamethrowers on to the field if they were allowed!

But the Lions have a very nice picture on their helmets, so at least they look good. Or am I thinking of the redskins?

duchy you and your local folks would be NFL fans is the Lions actually got competitive on a regular basis, and you know it. According to national stats the NFL is the most popular sport in the country. Brasidas you are probably referring to the Redskins who have the most intricate emblem of any pro football team-the Lions just have a blue lion against a silver field. (Field of Dreams was about the essence of baseball not how it's played and the other film you mention was Bull Durham that was realistic but slightly tongue in cheek and dealt with a minor league team.)

It is pretty safe to say that I would not be an NFL fan, no matter how good the Lions might be. I do not like the NFL for the very same reason I do not like the NBA - I despise how both leagues are filled with gang bangers and criminals, and how that lifestyle is glorified in both sports.

Other Detroit area people might like the Lions if they ever started winning, but it is very clear that the team has a culture of losing, from the owner to the managers to the players to the cleaning guys at Ford Field. The team would have to be sold to a new owner and pretty much everyone associated with the team would have to be purged before anything positive could happen. And even then it would take years/decades before he new owner could figure out how to put a quality product out on the field, if the example of Mike Ilitch and his ownership of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers could be taken as an example. It took him years to figure out how to build a good hockey team - and he still hasn't figured out how to build a good baseball team, though he nearly had it right a couple of years ago - and then allowed that good team to be ruined with the addition of a bunch of overpaid worthless stars who do not earn their huge salaries in this past off season.