I believed baseball was an inferior sport to Cricket
How ‘Moneyball ignited my interest in baseball
I have been a cricket fan for almost all my life; I was born into a Pakistani family, so it was kind of inevitable. I have always looked down on baseball as an inferior sport.
Growing up, my view of baseball was profoundly shaped by a clumsy cartoon character and the shadow of cricket.
My first introduction to baseball was through the Doraemon anime from Japan. It used to come on kids’ cartoon channels, and the main character, Nobita, was horrible at it.
His repeated failures and clumsy attempts to play the game were played for comedic effect, and this portrayal left me with a rather negative impression of the sport.
To my young self, baseball seemed like a game that was either too complicated or simply not worth the effort — a perspective heavily influenced by Nobita’s ineptitude.
The pitches in baseball would get hit easily in cricket. The ball is also harder, and, unlike baseball, fielders catch with their bare hands. The fielders are also closer in cricket compared to baseball. The runs are harder to score and seem boring; teams could win games without even going into double digits.
