Is Baseball Essentially The Same As Rounders?

[DownwardDog]

That's cos they know if it was a REAL world series, the Cubans would kick their ass

The Cubans got beat by the Japanese in the World Baseball Classic. I don't think even the best Cuban teams like Industriales would be anywhere in MLB.

 

[N_igma]

http://www.historybuff.com/library/refearlybase.html

Not according to QI it's not:

"Baseball (originally base ball) was invented in England and first named and described in 1744 in A Little Pretty Pocket Book. The book was very popular in England and was reprinted in America in 1762..."

It does go on to say however:

"If any one person should be credited with inventing the modern US game, it is Alexander Cartwright, a Manhatten bookseller. He had been a volunteer fireman and in 1842 founded the Knickerbocker Baseball Club (after Knickerbocker Fire Engine Comapny)."

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yeh, and he was The Penguin in the 60s Batman.

I just have a feeling he must have played grizzled, irascible coach in baseball movies.
But then I have a similar thing about Borgnine, almost an obsession. I've started spotting roles he SHOULD have played.

Burgess Meredith is totally wrong for a baseball coach, and just right for a boxing coach.

Maybe Meredith could have been a movie rounders coach.

 

[marty21]

Yeh, and he was The Penguin in the 60s Batman.

I just have a feeling he must have played grizzled, irascible coach in baseball movies.
But then I have a similar thing about Borgnine, almost an obsession. I've started spotting roles he SHOULD have played.

in "the natural" you had a choice of old grizzled coaches

richard farnsworth and wilfred bramley

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I have a thing for that Sandalot film, only good baseball film I've watched.

The Sandlot. Excellent movie.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

in "the natural" you had a choice of old grizzled coaches

richard farnsworth and wilfred bramley

Wilford Brimley has the right irascibility. Meredith's irascibility comes as a reaction to personal defeat. Brimley's comes from innate egotism, which is essential in a baseball coach.

 

[shagnasty]

There an old film starring paul douglas as a blaspheming coach were god does a deal with him can't remember the name

 

[shagnasty]

Found the title it was angels in the outfield

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

In A League Of Their Own, Tom Hanks is the coach. Hanks wouldn't normally be able to play the coach if it was male players. He could do it if it was little league, and he's good when the story involves female players, because the standard-role coach would come across as too sexist and bullying.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Walter Matthau is good as a coach in Bad News Bears because the team is a bunch of mouthy delinquents, so he can be the irascible coach, but he's irascible to cover up the fact that he's a big softie inside, perfect for bringing the 'delinquents' around and turning them into life-affirming winners!

 

[Kenny Vermouth]

Baseball's a fucking brilliant sport as that Red Sox v Rangers game on NASN the other night proved.

 

[souljacker]

Another difference betwen baseball and rounders is that a rounders innings last as long as there are people left in the team that aren't out, whereas in baseball, you get 3 'outs' per innings and 9 innings.

Bad News Bears is one of my favourite films of all time.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Brilliant name tho' you must agree, Rounders

Only bounders play rounders.

How very wonderfully British

 

[JTG]

The Americans were so keen to lay claim to Baseball as a game of American origin, they made up some garbage about it being invented by General Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. This is of course absurd and the game was invented here and is closely related to rounders, a game played by little girls and office workers on daft team building days.

The most popular sport in the US until the mid 19th century was cricket but this declined in popularity in roughly inverse proportion to the rate at which the colonials started losing their marbles.

 

[Pieface]

You did. He's not in Field of Dreams, or the Bad News Bears.

I use to love the Bad News Bears

First film I ever saw that showed someone on the toilet. I thought that was very dare.

And Tatum O'Neal is a double hard bastard pitcher - I taught myself to pitch badly after seeing that

 

[Matt S]

OP,

Baseball is great, though it sounds like we might not be into the same things, because I *love* the ludicrous amounts of stats.

Yeah, basically if you understand rounders you could probably understand most of what was going on in a baseball game (though probably not the references to said stats, like OBP, ERA, VORP etc).

The main differences seem to be the ball and the fact that pitchers can throw overarm, which makes hitting the ball succesfully MUCH harder. A decent baseball player will only get 'on base' (i.e. make it to first base by any means, whether hitting the ball, getting walked, getting hit etc) about a third of the time.

Matt

 

[Dr. Furface]

Yes, there are similarities between the two games, like you could say there are similarities between a Nissan Micra and an Aston Martin V8.

 

[JTG]

More like similarities between a red micra and a green one

 

[N_igma]

More like similarities between a red micra and a green one

Like Maggie Thatcher and a real human?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Baseball actually originated in England. And yes they're very similar games.

Yup, and it was quite big in England as late as just before WW2. Most major football clubs had an affiliated baseball team. Of course, this is why Derby's old ground was called the Baseball Ground.

 

[Dr. Furface]

More like similarities between a red micra and a green one

One of them would need to have fucking expensive paint!

 

[E.J.]

A non-US team has won the WS...

Yep the Toronto Blue Jays winning back to back World Series titles back in 1992 and 1993.

With reference to the OP's question Baseball is quite similar to rounders in terms of the objectives of the game i.e. Score more runs than the other teams & prevent the opposition from scoring runs. The smiliarities end because of what Matt S has already mentioned i.e. the types of pitching whilst bowling overarm e.g. Curve-ball, slider (a fast sliding fastball at around 90-95mph),fast-ball, knucle-ball, 2-seam fast ball (pitcher gripping the 2 seams on a baseball) - just to name deliveries.

Also the batter has to read/react to (within fractions of a second) whatever the type of pitch delivers from the pitcher mound to the batter i.e. on the home base.

Another baisc ting in Baseball if a pitcher bowls 4 pitches deemed outside the strike zone by the umpire then the batter goes or as the Yanks say "a walk" to first base.

P.S. A couple of my favourite baseball films are Mr Baseball with Tom "Magnum" Selleck as a former MLB player playing in Japan & Major League Baseball as already mentioned Bad News Brown. I forgotten the film with Billy Bob Thornton where he coaches a kid's baseball team is as good one as well.

 

[Jazzz]

The fat guy plays right field

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The Americans were so keen to lay claim to Baseball as a game of American origin, they made up some garbage about it being invented by General Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839.

I didn't realize that Abner Doubleday was a general.

And there's no doubt that the modern game and rules were invented in the US.

 

[aylee]

I went to see a Toronto Blue Jays match when I was travelling around Canada and I thought baseball made cricket look like sex with the most desirable person in the world.

The length of time that the match took, coupled with the lack of any away support, the unrelenting commercialism and the shite organ music that was used to encourage the fans to sing made it an experience that I wouldn't care to repeat.

Rounders is far more interesting.

 

[Kenny Vermouth]

My dad used to be a professional rounders player. He played for Shadoxhurst Giants in the mid-Kent junior rounders league in the 1960s.