Live longer and better.Originally Posted by holmes168
Live longer and better.
Ignore Alien Orders
I probably should, though baseball, as a sport, eludes me. Not because of anything wrong with it but rather because beyond the obvious (hitting the ball catching the ball, running to the bases), the reasons and purposes of why and how every one else on the team is are doing what they are doing is totally unclear to me. Like in soccer, you can follow who has the ball and what he does with it (pass, shoots etc ..) but the great pleasure of that sport (or any other team sport) is, for me at least, to see and know what is happening all around and why. Just watching a game won't be enough; still, I should watch more :-) .Many consider hitting a baseball to be the single hardest (skill) accomplishment in sports. The "cutter" is a pitch. (Cut fastball.)
I was just kind of making a quip regarding their level of talent is all. I guess you'll need to get out to some Nationals and Orioles games and pick up the nuance.
I played one softball game many years ago, and while being able to tell whether the thrown ball was, or not, in the box, was something I could do, but hitting it was another thing altogether. I have no doubt that hitting a baseball is an extremely difficult skill to acquire.
Still, since we are comparing sports, I'll have to be contrary :-)
Watch the following video starting at 0.41, and then tell me how hard it is to hit a ball with a stick ;-)
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
Well, at least they came to Russia to see how to manage one.
To think the next WC is going to be a winter one, it's going to likely be quite mess.
You got to play at the Luzhniki? that must have been awesome.
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
That's the problem for US soccer, a multi sport athlete has a whole bunch of incentives to not choose soccer as his sport of choice (much less so for women) and thus limit the US' pool of talent for big tournaments like the World Cup. I even read somewhere, that the NFL is poaching rugby players from places like Australia simply due to the salaries available. Purely from the point of view of talent pool of athletes, the US could have won the World Cup a few times already, but the incentives aren't there for it, yet.
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
The minutae of rules doesn't matter, it all comes down to highly paid experts selling beer.
That said, I rather like Rugby Sevens. No mob of players like league rugby or soccer, there is about as much scoring as NFL.
Code Name: JET STREAM
France was extremely lucky in the first half against Crotatia. It happens sometimes, specially in a game like soccer where the difficulty and few chances to score make it an inherenty "less fair" sport compared to others where the high number of score opportunities make them more statistically "fair". In basket, rugby, tennis, etc. if one team/player is better than the other the difference is quite obvious in the score; not so in soccer.
Add to this having only one chance to win or lose (not the best of 3-5 games; or winning by at least a 2 point diffence like in other sports), and anything can happen. If you look at the knockout stages really quite a few games could had a different outcome, and this does not make a team really the "better" one. It is what it is.
Second, I enjoy sports as much as anyone... but "pro sports" is a misnomer to me. And national pride coming from sport feats is often the balsam/opium of the masses in societies that have much bigger unsolved problems.
The reason you see so many black athletes in the US (besides so many of them being athletically gifted) is the same reason you see pro football (soccer for you non metric) players in Europe or in South America coming from the subburgs/villas/slums: poverty. It is a way out, for people that don't have the education, money and connections to improve their situation. Being a "pro athlete" is a high risk career, probably out of good prospects one in 1000 makes it to pro, and one in 10,000 makes decent money. Most lose the money they make almost as fast as they earn it, and end their lives back at the bottom.
Nobody in their right ming would want their son to be a pro soccer player, leaving their parents at an early age to go to X club seminal housing in Y city, in Z country, if they had the means and perspective to be an engineer, doctor, MBA, or even (gasp!) a lawyer.
Nope, I am from Yekaterinburg where France played Peru, although Sweden-Mexico was the game to watch there. The Central Stadium was never a football stadium until the cup. It hosted a bandy team and was utilized for various other things. I did some track and ice skating there while in high school. Two buildings of my medical school are next to the stadium and we had to walk through its grounds every day. Once in a while when we had a free time, we'd go in and kick a ball around. Fun times.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
I was in Yekaterinburg a year ago and took a picture of the no pictures sign when they were revamping the stadium
Welcome to Africa, bring a hardhat.
That sign is probably up again. After constructing that stadium, twice because first didn't meet FIFA needs, the plan is to deconstruct a part of it.
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