Moderator
Posted 08 March 2016 - 05:14 PM
I've said this before....
While the interest in China is nice and all, they ought to be looking more closely at India. They have nearly as many people as China, over a billion. But the national sport in India is cricket....so in theory it would seem, given the similarities between the sports, that baseball might do well there both in terms of interest and coordination skills that might transfer over for growing kids.
Didn't work out all that well for that dude from Mad Men.
CFB Analyst
Posted 08 March 2016 - 05:20 PM
Didn't work out all that well for that dude from Mad Men.
Never watched it, so you'll have to fill me in.
Moderator
Posted 08 March 2016 - 06:59 PM
Never watched it, so you'll have to fill me in.
Whole feel good Disney movie about finding cricket players to transition to baseball, they considered it a success when they found 3 that could hit the catcher and throw 85. It wasn't pretty. A movie...but still, point remains that you'd need the local population to start SOME form of baseball there before it's really even worth scouring for talent. China has shown willingness to do this the past few years which is why it's starting there now. India could be behind them a couple years, but I don't think there's much there yet.
Fair-weather ex-diehard
Posted 08 March 2016 - 07:54 PM
Whole feel good Disney movie about finding cricket players to transition to baseball, they considered it a success when they found 3 that could hit the catcher and throw 85. It wasn't pretty. A movie...but still, point remains that you'd need the local population to start SOME form of baseball there before it's really even worth scouring for talent. China has shown willingness to do this the past few years which is why it's starting there now. India could be behind them a couple years, but I don't think there's much there yet.
Well, it was a dumb movie, baseball-wise... I don't think it tells us beans about how actual cricket players would do... (am not suggesting that cricket players would be good, just saying we don't know squat about that, and that movie doesn't add any knowledge for us...)
I think Drungo had opinions about cricket players and baseball, but I forget what they were... dunno if he was focused on throwing or hitting. Maybe somebody who's not banned for all eternity over there can go there nose around....
I agree that China has much greater ability than India to decide that baseball improvement will happen... say what you want about China, they know how to get stuff done... no kidding, if they wanted to, they could decide to have 10% of MLB players be from China in X-decades' time, and they'd do it.... but they'd pick a realistic period of time... it they thought it would take 50 years, they'd say, "OK, we've got 50 years, let's get started"... in my brief visits over there, I was very impressed with their Can-Do attitude... in that regard, they're a lot like we Americans are (or like we used to be, anyway)...
"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a second-class immortal." - Satchel Paige
HOF
Posted 08 March 2016 - 08:15 PM
In case anyone's curious:
http://www.baseball-...id=patel-001din
http://www.baseball-...id=singh-001rin
Singh was actually doing pretty well in A ball, but got hurt. The Pirates apparently resigned him this winter, too.
CFB Analyst
Posted 09 March 2016 - 01:35 AM
I agree that China has much greater ability than India to decide that baseball improvement will happen... say what you want about China, they know how to get stuff done... no kidding, if they wanted to, they could decide to have 10% of MLB players be from China in X-decades' time, and they'd do it.... but they'd pick a realistic period of time... it they thought it would take 50 years, they'd say, "OK, we've got 50 years, let's get started"... in my brief visits over there, I was very impressed with their Can-Do attitude... in that regard, they're a lot like we Americans are (or like we used to be, anyway)...
When they were awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics, around 10 years prior to the Games, China was determined that they would win the medal count and most golds....and they weren't exactly an athletic powerhouse at the time. They actually analyzed what sports/events provided them with the path of least resistance to medals, and steered athletes and training resources into those sports. And they succeeded.
Kind of reminiscent of the old Soviet Union and some of the Eastern Bloc countries....though it took them longer to get to where they wanted to go IIRC, despite having the benefit of the IOC's version of "amateurism" at the time. And, I'm convinced, some chemical help too....though that might have been a double-edged sword....how those East German women swam so fast with all that back hair creating a drag is pretty remarkable.
HOF
Posted 09 March 2016 - 09:42 PM
The Sun:
Chapter 2: The American fastball and all those Xu Guiyuan broken bats
Chapter 3: Prospect Xu Guiyuan arrives with memento from far away
HOF
Posted 10 March 2016 - 08:35 PM
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