Rugby

In 1862, a new sport was introduces to South Africa. The sport was called Rugby. It is often referred to as the “father” of American football. Rugby is a fast pace game with very few stoppages. The game can be played with either 7 or 15 players. All players must be able to pass, catch, kick, and tackle. The field is 100 meters long and 70 meters wide.  The ball is made of leather and is oval shape much like a football but doesn’t have laces.  The match starts with a kickoff and the players can only advance the ball forward by running with it. You can only pass the backwards.  You could kick the ball forward and after the ball is kicked any player from either has the right to the ball.  You get 5 points for a try which is like a touchdown in American football.  2 points for a conversion much like an extra point.  3 points are awarded for a made penalty kick and for a made drop kick. This is not a drop kick that you would see in professional wrestling. If the ball goes out of bounds a line out is how you would restart play and that’s much like a throw in during soccer.  A scrum is most known rugby formation and is only formed after minor rule violations.  After a player is tackled a ruck is formed and play can continue after the passer passes the ball to another player.  Rugby tackles are much more violent than a football hit because there is no padding worn on the players.  If rugby players did wear padding it would create a false sense of invincibility like football players have due to the facemask.  The most known rugby team is the New Zealand All-blacks.        
http://www.allblacks.com/

The "Boatload Mentality" and Language Barriers

Did you know that 25% of MLB rosters are Latino or have Latino roots?  These players are also some of the best of in the league.  These players come from overwhelming poverty with no running water and little electricity.  Do you know what the “boatload mentality” of MLB organizations is?  This mentality is where you can sign 10 Latino players $3,000 each instead of signing one American player for $3 million.  The Athletics acquired Tejada’s talents for $2,000. Tejada’s American teammate, Ben Grieve, signed a contract with $1.2 million guaranteed.  The Texas Rangers also acquired Sammy Sosa in 1986 for $3,500. That’s the exact amount the Brooklyn Dodgers paid to sign Jackie Robinson in 1946.  These players often get mocked because their poor English skills.  Many Latino players are called “moody” or “hot-tempered”.  When it comes to Manny Ramirez, it’s just “Manny being Manny”.  Yet, for most Japanese baseball players they have interpreter by their side during interviews. Now, most MLB organizations are making players of different ethnicity take English classes before even stepping foot onto the baseball field.  I believe that the “boatload mentality is fair practice and that all players from outside the states should be taught English and have to use it.  Is the “boatload mentality” exploitation or fair practice.  Should all players have interpreters or be taught English?

Nadal's Watch

At the 2010 French Open, Rafael Nadal played his first match after reaching an agreement with French timepiece maker Richard Mille.  Mr. Mille doesn’t make just any watch. He makes very expensive watches.  Mr. Mille had reached an agreement with Mr. Nadal to wear his $525,000 watch during his matches.  The ESPN commentators made a big deal about this.  It turned out to be a big deal like the Venus Williams panty flashing. The watch weighed in at a total of 20 grams.  The commentators were saying that the 20 gram watch was going to throw off Nadal’s balance.  The commentators forgot that it used to be common for tennis players to wear watches during their matches.  Brad Gilbert had a contract with Ebel in 1986 and he was calling match Nadal’s match.  Despite all of the criticism over this watch, I do not believe that a 20 gram watch will affect the play of Rafael Nadal.

The wonderful world of Cricket

On Thursday, September 30th; Dr. Adrian Turner came into my Sports and Globalization class to talk the game of Cricket.  Dr. Turner went over the basics of the game with us.  There are 11 players on each team and each team takes a turn a batting.  The player throwing the ball is called a bowler.  The ball is made of a leather material and has one side smooth as the other side of roughed up a bit.  Two players at a time are batter but only of them is actually trying to strike the ball.  A run is scored when both players successfully run from wicket to wicket without getting out.  If the batter hits the ball and it bounces over the boundary they score four runs for their team.  If the ball flies over the boundary much like in baseball or softball they score six runs.  The batter can be called out a number of ways.  The ball being caught, the ball hitting the wickets, the batter hits the wickets with the bat, the wicket keeper catches the ball and hits the wickets with the ball before the batter leaves the batting crease, a run out or the umpire calls the batter out for blocking the wickets with his/her legs. 

Dr. Turner also talked about a player by the name of Glenn Mcgrath who Dr. Turner refered to as the “Tiger Woods” of Cricket.  Here is an internet article on the top 10 bowlers in the history of Cricket.
http://top-10-list.org/2010/03/16/ten-bowlers-list-cricket-history/