Someone back me up. I'm sure baseball players wear padded trousers - if not, some of the ones I saw in New York had real problems.

Major League Baseball players in the US
do not wear padded pants.

where did that comment come from??

I have to back that up -- no padded trousers for baseball players. Maybe those "padded" trousers were muscles under the influence of steroids~~

At one time, players would wear sliding pads to protect their, um..well, backsides from getting a "strawberry," that nice little patch of freshly scraped skin that looks like a strawberry and hurts like the dickens. I had a few in my time playing in high school and took to wearing sliding pads. Not too many players wear them today, at least any that I'm aware of. Could be wrong, though.

Well, I must be a very unusual British person, because I love baseball, and I can follow most of the rules. And I love the pants, padded or not Sadly, most of my friends tease me for my strange obsession (of course, instead, I should follow that silly game where 22 men run around after a ball, and fall over on a regular basis) and I have nobody to share it with.

Um....we know absolutely nothing about baseball (well, unless you happen to be a baseball fan, which I can say no one is over here). We're more of football (soccer)/cricket/tennis kind of people than baseball.

Baseball? I'm sure it's been said before, but that's rounders ain't it!

I might as well chuck my foreign sports questions in this thread.

Could someone explain what the hell a power play is in ice hockey?

Also, in American footy, there are only three structures? HS, College, Pro. Do you have any amateur suburban competitions that feature teams like the 'Pialba Hotel Pirates? Are there local comps that high school kids who didn't go to college or just want to play for fun can join?

Here our footy clubs will normally run quite a few teams. Note: These aren't pro clubs, but there is often cash bonus available in the higher levels and they will have graded teams so everyone can play at almost any age.

Premier Grade: Often elite level interstate or intrastate
First Grade: Holding pattern for wannabe premier leaguers
Second Grade: Holding pattern for wannabe first graders
Third Grade: Thirsty thirds (guys who are a bit past it like me)
Fourth grade: Little training, more social
Golden Oldies: 35 and up. Different rules to protect fragile bones
Colts: Under 18
Under 21: Break the kids in gently

Anything like this in the USA?

I never knew that the English knew something about cricket.
By the Way Wez, they call it 'bails' and not 'bales'.

I know nothing about cricket, apart from the fact that you have to hit the ball.

to the hockey question

when a member of a team commits a penalty and is caught by the referee, that offender must sit in the penalty box and think about his sins, but his team plays on without him which means that team plays a man down for the duration of the penalty, obviously the other team with the man advantage is on the power play

American gridiron football
yes, we have pee-wee leagues and other leauges that people of all ages and abilities can participate in
this goes for every sport imaginable played in the USA
colleges have intramural sports and so on.

Quote:

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Could someone explain what the hell a power play is in ice hockey?

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A power play occurs when a player receives a penalty (usually 2 minutes) and is sent to the penalty box for that amount of time. His team then plays with only 4 skaters against the other team's normal 5. The team with five skaters (ie forwards & defensemen) is on the power play.

The power play lasts until the penalty has been served, or until the team on the power play scores a goal. There are variations, but that is the basic scenario.

Snap! Great minds, eh, LordA?

Baseball is not Rounders. In baseball, the bat is not flat. Great, now I sound like Dr. Suess. The ball has to be hit in FRONT of home plate, and travel a certain distance to be in play. I've seen Cricket, and it seems the ball can be hit behind the batter, and the fielders are required to chase it. At least that what it looks like. My kids used to play football (not soccer) at the edge of a cricket field in our local park. One of the cricket players asked to join the game. Despite the warnings of my kids and their friends, he insisted. Thank God my son's friend is an EMT. This was a guy who played once a week. The cricket players I've seen on TV appear to be in much better shape.

Suffice it to say, most Americans will never care for cricket, and Australians, Indians, English, etc. will never warm up to baseball.

Padded pants?

Cricket is not rounders either.

the goalie counts as a skater
so it's six on five
although, only your three forwards and two defenseman
usually carry the puck into the offensive zone to attack
the goalie shouldn't leave the goal unless called out for an extra attacker

penalties two minutes for minors
and four minutes for majors
this all depends if you get caught though
I see all kinds of fouls that are not called cause the refs miss it

Um, where I grew up (southwestern Ontario), 'skaters' didn't mean the goalie, LA. Power plays would be 5 on 4, or occasionally 4 on 3 after a brawl (where there were lots of minors and few majors given out). Never heard 6 on 5.

Four minutes would be a double minor. Majors go 5, 10 and game misconduct, unless they have changed the rules a lot. Without checking a rule book, won't comment much on how majors affect power plays, but memory says that in general, they do not, ie a player serving a major penalty is replaced by another player (the team is not shorthanded).

Thanks. As simple as that. I was hoping for an explanation like the power play team all get 2ml injections of raw adrenaline, Bruce Banner style short time lasting growth hormones or Rodger Ramjet protein pills.

but doesn't the goalie wear skates??

Of course the goalie wears skates . I have even heard it said that he should in fact be the best skater on the team (usually by goalies). That said, 'skaters' equates to 'attackers' when used as I have done.

Have thought of an instance of 6 on 5. It is in fact the scenario you suggested, when the goalie is pulled for an extra attacker (and the other team is at full strength). You'd then have 6 skaters vs 5 plus the goalie.

Um, I … dislike, no, the word is not adequate, loath, yes loath, much better word, both Cricket and Baseball with a passion but think I can clear up a couple of things people have written.

1) Ace uses a baseball bat because in the UK baseball bats are widely regarded as rather cool weapons. Whereas unless you are fans of the TMNT films or the old Champion comic it is hard to think of the old cricket bat as a weapon. Lets face it its much easier to deliver mayhem with a symmetric club.

2) “Suffice it to say, most Americans will never care for cricket”. Surprisingly this is, or at least was not the case. In the middle of the 19th there was huge interest in Cricket in the USA centred on the Milwaukee league, Lincoln was apparently a fan. There is a famous poem written about a US match at the time. However in 1900 the International Cricket Conference squeezed the USA out of international competition restricting it to British Empire nations. It was not so much that the USA never cared for Cricket but that they got the ‘bums rush’ from the Brits..

3)“but it doesn't go 300 feet picking up speed before a catch is made.” Referring to the difference between a Baseball and a Cricket ball. I may not know much about these sports but I know a bit about physics. Maximum speed is observed at the moment when the accelerating force ceases to be applied. In other words the ball does not accelerate and pick up speed after it has left the bat.

Two questions about baseball:

1) Why do baseball players spit so much, why is it televised? Its vile!
2) Why do they play in their pyjamas? It looks so daft.

Lest I be accused of bias.

1) What is the situation with Umpires for International tests these days?

All i know about BAseball is this

IT SUCKS

end of

Interesting tidbit-

The first ever International cricket game was played between USA and Canada!

... and the fastest (& best) bowler in the world circa 1900 was one Bart King. A Philadelphian.

America, will eventually take to cricket to some degree, due to the large population of ex-pat Indians, Pakistanis, English, West Indians etc etc.

That'll be another team we can contrive to lose to .....

Just to address a couple of points.
1. As a specialist silly point cricket balls travel very fast and are very very hard - especially if you get one on the kneecap.
2. The tree at Canterbury is a lime, Wez! (and when it dies the groundsman has another to transplant in growing beyond the boundary) ... and Carl Hooper was the first man to clear it in sixty years.
3. Baseball is most definitely two handed complicated rounders.

How fantastic!!! I have always steered clear of the sports section but this thread caught my eye and I have to thank all of you for making me laugh out loud frequently!!!

I think that at least they look comfortable in their pyjama's....

And to answer the title question: not much. But then the only sports I like are Skiing, athletics and gymnastics.....can you tell I'm a girl?!