• yesman@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    That’s why we’re invading Cuba: to teach them baseball! We might even share our American love of classical cars.

  • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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    18 hours ago

    Kids, play nice, you can share a national sport, just like everybody else does with footie.

          • wjrii@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            There are a lot of very valid criticisms of American football. I love it, sometimes in spite of myself, but I won’t fault anyone who thinks it’s an overly-managed made-for-TV snoozefest with no rhythm whatsoever. For better or worse, though, those helmets and pads do not make it any less of a violent “manly” sport. Far from it: they are the way Americans make ourselves feel better about watching a literal bloodsport with a ball.

            The way the game moves and the ruleset reward explosive impacts, and the unlimited substitutions mean players are selected and trained to optimize delivering and enduring that violence instead of, say, actually running for 80 minutes. The result is a dozen hits a game that would make a “biggest hits of the season” compilation video for rugby or Aussie rules. Also chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    That’s what happens to colonies. Look at how popular Cricket is in Commonwealth countries.

    • PoliteDudeInTheMood@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      Most Commonwealth countries, Canada is different because of our close connection with the US.

      There’s a group of Indians near me who play cricket every weekend so sometimes I’ll go by and bother them. “You’re playing the game wrong, you know. Have you guys never watched baseball before?” They’re always super nice and will spend ages explaining everything about the sport. They have a level of zeal for the sport which cannot be matched by even us hockey fans. Last summer we went down to the Galapagos and our group was mostly Brits and I would wait until late in the evening after they had started drinking and ask if they play soccer over there, and that is just as much fun to me.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        7 hours ago

        We have Rugby and Gaelic Football as our sports from the Commonwealth. We just suck at them because there’s only 3 months a year to play it.

        • PoliteDudeInTheMood@lemmy.ca
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          1 hour ago

          I’m a big guy, so someone decided that I’d be good at Rugby, and I got invited to the high school rugby practice. I had a good time even though the practice was in March and there was a foot of snow on the ground, but to this day, I have zero idea of how to actually play the game.

        • PoliteDudeInTheMood@lemmy.ca
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          1 hour ago

          I know the story: “association” → “assoc” → “soccer”, but they apparently didn’t get the memo, and there was much arguing.

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            12 hours ago

            Really? I’m anything but an expert in Japanese history but weren’t they very anti-western back in the empire’s days?

            • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              Also not an expert, just talking from what I remember from history class: in the mid 19th century, Japan underwent a period of rapid westernization and industrialization called the Meiji Restoration. This was at least in part a response to western interference in the region, including a pivotal moment when the US forced the country to sign unequal trade deals by showing up with some big naval vessels.

              So it was kind of a love-hate relationship. They didn’t like the westerners invading their country, but they also admired them enough that they not only adopted western tech, but also a bunch of social and political customs.