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I've never played baseball seriously, but growing up in North Cambridgeshire we have two large US air bases nearby (Mildenhall & Lakenheath) and a lot of service families living in the area. As a kid I sometimes played knock-about stuff with the American kids and the main difference I found was the ball. With a baseball you have four rotating seams, so it is far easier to get the ball to move in the air. You can make it rise & dip as well as move sideways like a cricket ball.
It is far easier to teach someone to "pitch" than to bowl tho; none of the Yank kids could ever get their heads round bowling!
Batting is harder to compare, of course baseball batters never play with a straight bat or have to face full deliveries at their feet like cricket players, but weighed against that is the size of the bats. I'm sure if Sammy Sosa was given a cricket bat he'd think he could never miss!
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- As featured in The Independent.
"This is not the time for namby-pamby promising youngsters who might just do something; not the time for building for the future. Pragmatism rules and they don't come more pragmatic than Rogers."
- Victor Marks makes the case for stiff-legged and stiff-armed 35 year old left-handers in Ashes squads
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