Baseball in Cricket stadiums

[darkcloud4579]

I did some research and rough calculations to attempt to create ballpark factors for a few cricket stadiums. The sheer size of the playing field in most makes it a pretty big challenge, but...at the same time, it's a lot of fun to be able to do it and I haven't tested it out yet for a game, but I intend to later this season in my current dynasty.

The premise is, it's not like America where you'd get to descrate the pitch by putting say 20,000 more bleachers on the actual field of play to accomodate the differences between the sheer largess of a cricket pitch and the relative narrowness of a baseball field.

Foul Ground size is extra large.

Kensington Oval (28,000)
(Barbados, West Indies)
Dimensions: (330/403/414/475/425/368/349)
Factors

LBA: .966
RBA: 1.017
2B: 1.039
3B: 1.293
LHR: .688
RHR: .710

Lord's (30,000)
(England)
Dimensions: (345/423/470/505/460/410/360)
A baseball exhibition was actually played at Lord's around World War II.

LBA: 1.028
RBA: 1.009
2B: 1.135
3B: 1.597
LHR: .580
RHR: .485

I'll be doing others later, but...it was a neat idea of something different to attempt to do.

[Raidergoo]

If foul grounds are extra large, won't this have a negative effect on batting average?

[darkcloud4579]

Umm..of course. But the problem is, cricket grounds are HUGE. The typical cricket ground has a playable area of at least 175,000 sq. ft. Whereas the largest baseball fields average field is are 110-120k sq. ft. Soo...there isn't much else you can do in most cases. Plus, you figure with the outfield being so big, the large foul grounds are incidental on batting average marginally.

[darkcloud4579]

I can pick smaller cricket grounds and might eventually do that, because it might be a little eaiser or we can pick places that would succumb to our desire to have bleachers on the field of play so we can move the fences in.

[darkcloud4579]

Lord's is amazing.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

If foul grounds are extra large, won't this have a negative effect on batting average?

What's wrong with low batting averages. Some of us are pitchers you know. Giant OF (provided you got OFs with enough range), large foul grounds to keep the ball in for easy pop-up outs..........HEAVEN!!

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Lord's (30,000)
(England)
Dimensions: (345/423/470/505/460/410/360)
A baseball exhibition was actually played at Lord's around World War II.

I remember kind of looking into this before, but I couldn't find any real good sources of the dimensions - plenty of stuff dealing with the pitch, but very little dealing with the actual total playing area of the stadiums. I, for one, would definitely be interested in this information.

At the turn of the century, the White Sox played at South Side Park, which was a converted cricket ground originally built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. It would be used by the Negro League's American Giants until it burned down in 1940.

[darkcloud4579]

I remember finding that stadium on the database and it was helpful to me, because I could get an idea based on its dimensions of what they did for a normal cricket ground and stuff.

Wikipedia has a comparison on cricket v. baseball and that helped me figure out the total surface area of average fields, then I went online and googled the size of Lords and actually found a Brittanica article about it saying what the size of Lords playing field was, though it's supposed to be smaller than the Melbourne Cricket Ground and so, I scaled it back.

So all in all, my numbers aren't perfect. But at the absolute worst, they're better than they'd be if we were doing it in real life, since they'd probably be even more cavernous than I've estimated for the more esteemed grounds. Places in the West Indies might be even easier to scale, while some of the massive stadiums in India and Australia will be a different story.

It took me a few hours to figure it out, though. Yet, now that I understand how it works, it'll be a fun way to globalize baseball the way I wish it would happen in real life, but probably will only work in my OOTP dreams.

[treedom]

VLPOCF

[darkcloud4579]

In English?

[eriqjaffe]

"Very Large Portion Of Cheese Fries"

[zekester91]

if baseball now played in a cricket feild, why won't they just put up those temp or snow fences for realistic feild dementions and then charge a lot for on the feild seats? Make it almost like WWE baseball with feild seating

[darkcloud4579]

Hmm.....

[shefffred]

In the 1980's, I went to see a team of Mets farmhands play a team of Red Sox minor leaguers at the Oval Cricket Ground in South London (Now called the Fosters Oval - Gosh, I hate sponsorship.) The game was rained out after a few abs, as I recall. The ground was massive, though.

I also saw (in 1987, i think), a team of MLB alumni (including Dick Allen (!), Jerry Grote, Tug McGraw, Billy Williams, Luis Tiant, Tim Foli, Mark Fidrych (!!!), and some others) play the GB national team at the Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester (which is next door to the soccer stadium). That field didn't seem as big. In fact, George Foster hit a ball over the pavillion (like the big-mansion building type thing you can see in the piccies above). The cricket fans in attendance were mighty impressed.

Closer to home, the original Mets (1800's) played at the St George Cricket Club in Staten Island for a few years. Apparently, they didn't have a bullpen, either.
[IMG] [/IMG]

[darkcloud4579]

Awesome!

I wonder how common baseball fans in the UK are? I mean, I know there are people who know the game, but...would it do better there overall than say, American football?

I'd like to believe it would, but...I've long wondered this. Especially with the advent of Twenty20 Cricket which is being criticized as turning cricket into baseball.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Awesome!

I wonder how common baseball fans in the UK are? I mean, I know there are people who know the game, but...would it do better there overall than say, American football?

I'd like to believe it would, but...I've long wondered this. Especially with the advent of Twenty20 Cricket which is being criticized as turning cricket into baseball.

I'd say it's about as popular as American Football in the UK. It has a cult following.

I also think Twenty20 could be used to popularise cricket in the US too.

[darkcloud4579]

I think with the growing population from the Subcontinent, as well as people from the Caribbean who are already are here, Twenty20 might grow in certain pockets of the country. I know the NY Times is desperate for it to become popular for some strange reason and have taken to writing cricket articles at random times over the past few months. Most recently, about Twenty20.

I watched some cricket when I was overseas on satellite a bunch of years back and I thought I got the gist then. I get it for sure now and understand what's happening, but I think I am indeed too hard wired for baseball to be able to detach enough to get into it. I think the fact that test cricket at the international level is "where it's at" makes it harder for me, too.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Awesome!

I wonder how common baseball fans in the UK are? I mean, I know there are people who know the game, but...would it do better there overall than say, American football?

I'd like to believe it would, but...I've long wondered this. Especially with the advent of Twenty20 Cricket which is being criticized as turning cricket into baseball.

I'd have to go with the NFL having a much larger fanbase than the MLB in the UK, no solid facts but going of the fact that Sky show the NFL and don't show MLB games would have me believe that more money is to be made from the NFL games rather than the MLB games. Setanta show MLB games over here along with Channel 5 but you'd think if there was money to be made then Sky would outbid them.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

I think with the growing population from the Subcontinent, as well as people from the Caribbean who are already are here, Twenty20 might grow in certain pockets of the country. I know the NY Times is desperate for it to become popular for some strange reason and have taken to writing cricket articles at random times over the past few months. Most recently, about Twenty20.

I watched some cricket when I was overseas on satellite a bunch of years back and I thought I got the gist then. I get it for sure now and understand what's happening, but I think I am indeed too hard wired for baseball to be able to detach enough to get into it. I think the fact that test cricket at the international level is "where it's at" makes it harder for me, too.

Baseball and cricket are very much alike, just like in the States where you get the purist wanting no DH and low scoring games and the Playstation era people wanting DH and 15 homers a game it's the same, purists want test match cricket and county cricket and the Playstation genre want limited overs cricket and fast scoring games.

[shefffred]

American Football is more popular than baseball here, although gridiron is on the wane here.

Basketball is very popular as a participant sport, and now that the national team has moved into the top division of European hoops (thanks to Luol Deng), it may become more popular as a spectator sport.

Baseball is on the up here, since the national team finished second in the European championships last month. 3 problems with this: 1. Almost all the players were from the US, Canada, and Australia; 2. There was zilch coverage in the press, and 3. the national league is a bit of a joke.