Geeza said:

Just picking up on the discussion over sports. I say every man to his own.

If you really want to see a piss poor game, take ANY sport and allow women to play it.

How can any woman call herself the best at any sport when she could easily be beaten by a man. What the fuck happened to equality there?

Ok man, fair comment, but you are not the only one here who is guilty of the aforementioned crime.

If you really want to see a piss poor game, take ANY sport and allow women to play it.

How can any woman call herself the best at any sport when she could easily be beaten by a man. What the fuck happened to equality there?

I contend that the reason they’ll never concede and admit allegiance to the Sport King is cause they suck unbelievably at it.

JD said:

sonyad in my opinion soccer disallows the use of hands, but uses a perfectly spherical ball that is very predictable in bounce, making it controllable. AFL and to a lesser extent Rugby league players, need awesome ball control because the thing is shaped liked Oprah sat on it. We call it a pill. (Do Americans call the gridiron ball a pill?)

On the other hand JD the round ball is far less predictable in flight. As a former goalkeeper I can assure you of the truth of this. While in flight the round ball presents a far greater surface area to the air.

BTW a common nickname for Aussie Rules (AFL) is cross-country basketball.
I think aerial ping pong is a more apt description.

Aussie rules has far more in common with basketball than with rugby. Both, unlike rugby, are sports for seriously good athletes. And don’t for a minute think that basketball is a soft sport. I’ve had seven foot, twenty stone, muscle bound behemoths coming straight at me at full speed. Not a pretty site and very dangerous particularly if you’ve got no choice but to try and stop them.

Hey didn’t you guys invent Basketball? I don’t here anyone else claiming it.

You would have to say it is the American sport with the most widespread international appeal.

BTW a common nickname for Aussie Rules (AFL) is cross-country basketball.
I think aerial ping pong is a more apt description.

1869
Rutgers and Princeton played a college soccer football game, the first ever, November 6.

After 200-some years of informal play, the first set of written rules for rugby appears to date to 1845 at, obviously, Rugby School in England.

By the late 1860’s, the game was well-established in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. (In many cases, including in Quebec, British soldiers introduced the game to locals).

While informal games were played between Canadians and Americans in the 1867 to 1870 (including one at Kingston), it’s generally held that a McGill-Harvard series (with codified rules) in 1874 propelled the game solidly into the Ivy league.

On this, the balance of the evidence suggests to me that it came from Britain to the US primarily via the way of Canada, though no doubt secondarily via other sources. Research shows no enormous impact of the games played — including the one you note — prior to the McGill-Harvard series.

Given Harvard’s preeminence in the Ivy League, it seems likely that was decisive.

A stretch to say Canada invented it? Perhaps, though the rules started to change in Montreal. But my main point was that the US didn’t, and that was the main joke in my response to the list. We do love to think we’ve invented everything, and, in the field of sports, it’s sadly not much!

“That leaves uh… Baseball.�
There are lots of differing opinions on that one wolfe. Many claim it’s a descendent of another English game, rounders.

@JD I agree entirely with that; that said, I think baseball is sufficiently well-developed as a distinct sport, that I’m comfortable saying it was invented/developed/created (pick a verb) in the US, admittedly as a descendant from rounders.

After all, you guys have to leave us with something we invented!

As for motor racing wolfe we, have V8 supercars in Aus. Like many things we do, it’s kind of a bastard Euro-American hybrid.

Not a bad description of Australia… As for ovals, I think they’re great for stress-testing engines, not so great for uh… anything much else. Nascar driving does have genuine skill, and the track reproducibility is of some value, but, I confess as a spectator sport it leaves me looking for the exit. Much like about 99.9% of off-Broadway and 95% of Broadway. [live theater in New York for non-USAians].

-wolfe

The Living Heart Foundation, an NFL associated operation is trying to “separate truth from fiction related to player’s [sic] health.”. They note:

Professional football players have a unique lifestyle. They come from diverse backgrounds and share a demanding exercise training program. Over the past 30 years, the body size of players has increased dramatically and training patterns have evolved into year round monitored exertion. The physical nature of the sport involves rigorous and aggressive contact. The emphasis on winning games is associated with a stressful work environment. The average duration of a playing career is about four years and the transition from elite athlete to working citizen may be difficult.

Anecdotal reports and two surveys suggest that musculoskeletal and cardiovascular problems are common in retirement. Rumors abound that the average life expectancy of players that play for 5 or more years is around 56 years. If this estimate were true, life expectancy for professional football players is significantly less than that for the USA population at large. It could also be speculated that the quality of life in later years is diminished in similar fashion.

-wolfe

The Poms may suck at sport these days, with the singular exception of their cricket team (English football teams all currently suck), but we owe the existence of almost every major sport we play across the globe today to an EnglishMAN.

As for motor racing wolfe we, have V8 supercars in Aus. Like many things we do, it’s kind of a bastard Euro-American hybrid. Two make, Holden (GM) or Ford, 1.5 tonne 4 door saloons with 700hp 5 litre fuel injected pushrod V8 (rev limit 7,500) 6 speed crash box, Custom 9″ independent diff, top speed around 300kph (’bout 290-300kph down Condrod straight at Bathurst). All circuit racing no ovals (you yanks can keep that). The Holden(GM) car, the commodore, is the 4 door version of the car Oz made for America, the last comaro. Check out video of last years race at Bathurst at http://bigpondguide.com/055C01936F27B218F98AEE9B7C96DD63_3_11_ToddKell y-Holden-Racing-Team-Bathurst01-Bathurst-T-Kelly-Skaife-Ambrose-Lownds e-Murphy-McConville-Bathurst-crash-Richards-Whincup-Besnard-Baird-Bat

wolfe said:

4. They didn’t invent it.

Put Rugby down to the UK/Celts, and American football probably down to the Canadians. Basketball was definitely invented by a Canadian. Ditto Hockey. That leaves uh… Baseball. NASCAR is all ours though! Well, ‘cept for the Europeans inventing motor-racing. But that’s a detail.

-wolfe

1869
Rutgers and Princeton played a college soccer football game, the first ever, November 6. The game used modified London Football Association rules. During the next seven years, rugby gained favor with the major eastern schools over soccer, and modern football began to develop from rugby

wolfe said:

Judging by the life-expectancy (circa 56 years for those who play 5 or more years of pro-ball) of American football players, I’m not sure there’s strong evidence for it being an overly protected, pansified sport.

Interesting statistic. Where did you find that one wolfe?

-Dick

Does not compute.

Besides, I’m of the opinion that any sport’s boring to some lesser or greater extent if you’re only just watching. Except for fishbladiating. Which is plain annoying anyway you cut it.

JD said:
wolfe, I’m cricket mad mate. Cricket is a truly glorious game that produced one of the worlds all time sporting freaks in Sir Donald Bradman. Compared to his contemporaries, or even today’s greats, he is head and shoulders above them all statistically (cricket is very manly, chock full of statistics). There are facts everywhere. It scares many women.

I agree 100%, JD.
-wolfe

Why the Yanks hate Football (oops..soccer)

10. CANNOT accept a draw. Need overtime, Double OT, Triple OT.

Darn right. We still think we won the war of 1812. And Korea. And poor Vietnam, lets not go there.

9. There are no Cheerleaders

Ditto. Got to have something for the wimminfolks to do other than fetch beer. Besides, as Dick says in today’s post, it’s one of their core competences… at which sadly so many still fail.

8. Average Yank: “What? I LOVE football. Every year I tune in to watch the Super Bowl!�

True dat.

7. Not enough goals. Yep, unlike baseball where there is a home run every TWO minutes.

Basketball would have been a funnier analogy. Still, true enough.

6. Football is a dirty, filthy sport played by the commies.

Darn tootin’. Unlike Hockey (Russia, Czechs) or Baseball (Cuba), those great all-American sports.

5. Cannot understand how a WORLD cup has teams from all over the world participating. (Unlike [world series])

Quite true.

4. They didn’t invent it.

This is actually weak… Americans didn’t invent most of our sports. Put Rugby down to the UK/Celts, and American football probably down to the Canadians. Basketball was definitely invented by a Canadian. Ditto Hockey. That leaves uh… Baseball. NASCAR is all ours though! Well, ‘cept for the Europeans inventing motor-racing. But that’s a detail.

3. The offside rule is just too damn hard to understand.

Also weak. Baseball is more strategically complex.

2. Football is boring. They rather watch Golf.

This one made me laugh out loud. Too true. You do know Sam Clemens’ comment on golf? “A good walk spoiled”.

1. They suck at it.

Very true. Sadly, even if we didn’t, it wouldn’t change interest levels much.

I still maintain that watching soccer is one of the greatest soporifics going. But I’ll gladly add watching golf.
-wolfe

AFL umps look very gay, yet despite such inflammatory garments and behaviour (waves arm like some kind of camp musical dancer, floppy wrist and all…) the players don’t always give as much shit to the umps as they appear to in soccer.

“The football pads allow players to hit each other much harder than rugby players could and survive.”
Yep spot on Billy. American football players are HUGE; I’m guessing around 110-120kg 1/4 back up to 150-170kg+ for linebacker (or other relative big position). Guys that size smashing into each other without padding will totally fuck themselves in short order. As men, they are sensible and use pads. No shame…brains.
Gridiron is a power/strength sport. Short burst of intense activity followed by a break then at it again. Doesn’t a gridiron team have offensive and defensive “teams” that swap dependent upon possession?
Rugby (league and union), AFL, Gaelic football, and soccer are primarily cardio intensive sports with a lesser or greater degree of strength/power thrown in depending on the code, greater for Rugby (L/U), much less for soccer, where less power more ball control (easier with a round ball) is required.

Fuck I love sport!

wolfe, I’m cricket mad mate. Cricket is a truly glorious game that produced one of the worlds all time sporting freaks in Sir Donald Bradman. Compared to his contemporaries, or even today’s greats, he is head and shoulders above them all statistically (cricket is very manly, chock full of statistics). There are facts everywhere. It scares many women.