The Pitch!

cricket bats - good and solid willow.

The word pitch has loads of meanings: you can pitch an idea, pitch a ball at baseball; it can be the pitch you play on, as in football (soccer), or the cricket pitch which is the piece of ground between the two wickets at cricket, twenty two yards long and ten feet wide – the hallowed piece of real estate that no one will walk upon.

People jump over it in case their foot leaves a mark or moves a piece of the sacred sod.

A pitch at baseball is what they call it when the 'pitcher' throws the ball at the batter, trying to get the ball past him, and into the catcher's hands – or to be more precise – his glove. The glove being worn on one hand – the none throwing hand.

Here is the picture of a pitcher:

not not that one – this one:

in all truth does this look more dynamic?

or this?

or even these 2 images.

Those last two are of Frank (Typhoon) Tyson a bowler – at cricket. 

And this is what it looks like at the other end:

At cricket you have to bowl the ball and keep your bowling arm straight or it will be a foul as you are not allowed to throw the ball which you are at baseball.

You will notice that the pitcher – no not the jug – lifts a knee just before letting the ball go.

Now why is this?

I think it's when you lift the knee you have passed the point of no return and you cannot throw the ball at one of the bases if you see a batter out of his ground which is what you can do before lifting the leg.

It's the same as running someone out at cricket – in cricket two bases, in baseball three bases and the batter's box as in the expression think (or whatever) out of the box.

Yes there are plenty of sayings from baseball but probably more from cricket – a straight bat, a safe pair of hands, a sticky wicket, it's not cricket and many more.

The glove is worn on the one hand, at baseball, so the fielder can throw the ball with the other; however, at cricket, they don't wear a glove at all even though the ball is heavier (between five and a half to five and three quarter ounces as opposed to the baseball which is five and a quarter ounces) apart from the wicket keeper which is the cricket equivalent of baseball's catcher. He wears a pair of gloves.

The difference in weight between the two balls means that the cricket ball can be thrown further than the baseball which makes the long fielding at cricket better than long fielding at baseball but baseball's close fielding is far superior; there is nothing so spectacular as the double (or even triple) play.

The object of both games is to score more runs than the other team; in cricket you can have a drawn game – that is when the time allowed for play runs out before the last batting team are all out – or a tie; that is when both teams score the same amount of runs. 

If this happens in baseball they play till one of the teams has more runs than the other when they have both batted for the same amount of innings; this can sometimes mean playing after midnight.

As a general rule, batsmen at cricket think they can play baseball – but they can't. In baseball when you hit across the ball and you have to run when you hit it.

As a general rule, batters at baseball think they can play cricket – but they can't. In cricket you get behind the ball and hit it with a straight bat but you don't have to run; you can play defensive – unheard of in baseball.

Two great games, though, and I am privileged to know both of them so I know what a 'curve ball' and a 'googly' is.

By the way in cricket it's an innings and in baseball it's an inning.

A run at cricket is when you run to the other end of the pitch (you know what pitch means) and the batsman (batter in baseball) at the other end reaches the wicket at the batsman's end who has just hit the ball.

A run at baseball is when the batter (batsman in cricket) has run all the way around the triangle.

Here's the triangle:

 And here's the cricket pitch:

The bowlers at cricket bowl fast or slow. The fast bowlers 'swing' the ball and when it bounces it can go anywhere and when they bowl slow they 'spin' the ball and that can go anywhere too.

Give yourself a treat and look at one of the greatest bowlers ever, the Australian Shane Warne bowling the ball of the century – see how good it is on the replay in this clip which is about one minute long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waE8Ew5bejM

I hope all this is clear?

Oh! Not to worry – I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Here is a simple explanation of cricket:

The aim of cricket is simple - score more than the opposition.

Two teams, both with 11 players, take it in turns to bat and bowl.
When one team is batting, they try and score as many runs as they can by hitting the ball around an oval field.
The other team must get them out by bowling the ball overarm at the stumps, which are at either end of a 22-yard area called a wicket.

A batsman protects his stumps

The bowling team can get the batsmen out by hitting the stumps or catching the ball. Other ways of getting out
Once the batting team is all out, the teams swap over and they then become the bowling side.
Each time a team bats it is known as their innings. Teams can have one or two innings depending on how long there is to play.
The Ashes Test matches are over five days so England and Australia have two innings each to score as many runs as they can.
Whoever scores the most runs wins. But a cricket match can be drawn too.
That happens when the team bowling last fails to get all the batsmen out..

Here for baseball:

A baseball game is played by two teams who alternate between offence and defence. There are nine players on each side. The goal is to score more runs than the opponent, which is achieved by one circuit of four bases that are placed on the diamond.

When it boils down they are the same game but that's the way the Americans play it; they misread the memo.

Here are the heroes; two in baseball and the other at cricket; these men will never be replaced:

Ted Williams of the Red Sox and Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees.

Ian Botham - a hero for all time (a sporting hero, that is).