Cultural Impact of Cricket and Baseball

By Thomas Fischer
May 11, 2006

Sports have had a great impact on civilizations since the beginning of recorded history. Today I would like to tell you about the differences and similarities between baseball and cricket and the impact they have had on culture in the modern world. I have enjoyed playing, watching, and coaching baseball for most of my life. In recent years, I have done more reading about baseball and the history of baseball. I recently have done some additional reading about cricket, which is an ancestor of modern baseball. Today I will introduce you to some of the history of sports, the cultural impact of each, and the differences as well as the similarities between cricket and baseball.

Archeologists have found evidence that ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and Aztecs played games in which a ball was used and points were accumulated. The ancient Greeks had their Olympic events in which citizens participated for glory and honor. Cricket was perhaps the very first bat and ball sport in the world. It possibly originated in northern Europe sometime after the fall of the Roman Empire although it remains unclear where the name of the sport came from. There is written evidence of a sport known as creag being played by Prince Edward, the son of Edward I of England, around the year 1300. This sport is believed to have evolved into cricket and was played by boys at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, England in the late 1590s.

Cricket went from being a children's game in 1650 to a sport played by men in the 1700s. In 1676, there is a reference to cricket being played abroad for the first time, by British residents in Aleppo, Syria. As the sport evolved into a men's game in the 1700s, cricket gained popularity as a betting game. Laws were introduced that limited the daily betting to £10. As colonialism increased the size of the British Empire, cricket was spread abroad throughout Africa, Asia, and North America. The first international cricket match was played between the United States and Canada in 1844 at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ. Cricket is more popular in central Asia today than is soccer.

Several modern sports have evolved from the game of cricket including rounders, townball, baseball, and softball. American baseball has its origins in the 1840s. The lore of baseball credits General Abner Doubleday, a career U.S. Army officer and Union general in the Civil War, with inventing the game. A more tenable opinion for the past 50 years has been that a man named Alexander Cartwright was the inventor of the game.
The first game of baseball under Cartwright rules was played on June 19, 1846 at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ, just two years after the first international cricket match was played at the same field between the United States and Canada. There is no doubt that this game took place since a complete record of it exists. Organized baseball began to gain popularity in the 1860s after the Civil War. The first professional league, the National Association, was founded in 1871 but survived only four full seasons. The oldest modern league, the National League, was established in 1876. The Chicago Cubs are the only modern National League team that has remained in their original location since the league began.

Baseball and cricket have both made cultural impacts throughout their histories. Even in modern times, both sports continue to have cultural implications. Cricket has been a major sport in Great Britain for decades and ranks just behind soccer in popularity there. An international sport, cricket brings together players from across the world for matches that last several days. Zimbabwe Cricket Association has had troubles with racial discrimination in the past and has banned players from their league resulting in mass player defection to other countries including the United Kingdom and the United States. In central Asia, cricket is a more popular sport than soccer.

The Pak-Indo series has recently had political overtures. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently invited Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his family to attend the current Pak-Indo series match in India. This invitation comes amidst dispute between the two countries over the Kashmir region.
Such a meeting between these leaders enforces positive belief that the two countries could settle their differences and lessen political tension between them. Afghanistan had an international team that was allowed to tour Pakistan during the reign of the Taliban Government.

Baseball has increased in popularity internationally in the past fifty years. The Little League World Series has been held in Williamsport, PA for the past 50 years. International teams began participating in the Little League World Series in 1958. Baseball was first added to the Official Olympic schedule in 1992 at the Barcelona summer games. Cuba won both the 1992 and 1996 Gold medal at the Olympics as well as most recently at the Athens games in 2004. The U.S. won the Gold medal at the Sydney games in 2000.

In recent years Major League Baseball players have begun to be scrutinized for the use of steroids, human growth hormones, and other performance enhancing drugs. In March of 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform Committee held a hearing about the problem of steroid use in Major League Baseball. I watched the hearing on CNN as did millions of people and the distinct impression I got from the hearing was that congress views Major League Baseball as having an influence over young athletes and that these young athletes emulate the players. Thus, the direction of the committee is to try to help baseball deal with eliminating substance abuse within the league. By creating a policy on substance abuse, Major League Baseball has taken steps to eliminate the problem that is seeping down to the high school level and affecting student athletes. This subject is important to the physical as well as mental health of the country and I believe that is the reason why the government felt the need to get involved. It has definite cultural implications not only in American culture but on other societies as well.

The differences between cricket and baseball are as big as the differences between football and soccer. Just as there are differences between a parent and his or her child there are differences between cricket, the parent, and baseball, the child. Some of these differences include but are not limited to eleven players in cricket as opposed to nine in baseball. Additionally baseball fields have foul territory on the playing field, but a cricket field has no foul territory. When a batter in baseball hits the ball in fair territory, he runs the bases. However, in cricket the batter runs only when he feels he can safely advance without being put out regardless of how many times he hits the ball in his at bat. One further observation, cricket matches last one or two innings, but in baseball there are nine innings which are considerably much shorter. One or two innings in cricket might last as long as two nine inning baseball games or even longer.

Despite these differences there are some small similarities between the two sports. The similarities between cricket and baseball are like a child having the same color eyes as his or her parent. Some of these similarities include both sports having fielders that try to put out the batter. The most obvious similarity is that both baseball and cricket are played with a bat and a ball. Each sport has a person who throws a ball to a batter who tries to hit the ball. In baseball, this person is the pitcher or hurler, but in cricket, this person is called the bowler.

When we look at all of these things together, we can see there is a similarity between cricket and baseball that has had, and will likely continue to have an impact on many cultures. I hope that this has been somewhat informative for you and that you have learned something new from this. I have introduced you all to some of the history of each sport as well as the impact they have had on culture. I discussed the differences and similarities between the two sports. Perhaps the next time you watch a baseball game, whether it be a little league game or a Major League game you will think about how the game has evolved from cricket and how it has impacted different cultures.