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“Cricket was America’s first modern team sport”
In my recent linked post about the US team’s loss to England, I wrote:
I’m hoping this is the start of America’s love affair with cricket.
Rishabh Sharma, writing for India Today:
For the unversed, this may sound unbelievable. [...] But the gentleman's game has a long history in the US. Long before baseball claimed the American sports landscape, cricket was a prominent and popular game, embraced by a diverse array of players across the young nation.
Of course cricket was once popular in America, it was a British colony. It was shortsighted of me not to consider that.
For the British colonists who settled in North America, cricket was a pastime. By the mid-1700s, cricket had spread to other territories, with matches being reported in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
After 1783, when the American Revolution ended, the interest in all things British waned in America. But cricket continued to thrive and by the mid-1800s, the sport was being played in 22 states.
At one point, cricket was more popular than baseball, and The Philadelphia Cricket Club, established in 1854, is still around today.
Why did cricket lose out to baseball? As you might suspect:
The Civil War also saw a cultural shift in American sports as baseball began to be seen as a more American sport compared to cricket, which had a strong British association. The post-war period was a time of growing American nationalism, and baseball fit well into this cultural shift.
But, cricket is having a resurgence today, driven, ironically, by immigrants from former British colonies where cricket remained popular. There’s now a six-team Major League Cricket league, and the USA Cricket organization.
I guess what I should have said was I’m hoping this is a restart of America’s love affair with cricket.
U.S. Cricket Team out of T20 After Defeat by England
Ben Burrows, writing for The Athletic:
The United States is out of the T20 Cricket World Cup after a heavy defeat by England in Bridgetown, Barbados.
A colonizer defeating one former colony on the grounds of another former colony. That’s cricket for you.
The U.S. was a revelation in its first global competition and by reaching the Super Eights — a second group phase — will automatically be part of the next T20 World Cup, which will be held in India and Sri Lanka in 2026.
It’s hard to be too disappointed by the loss, though, considering it’s the team’s first match on the world stage, they upset Pakistan, and will play in the next T20 World Cup.
I’m hoping this is the start of America’s love affair with cricket.
U.S. captain Aaron Jones:
“The wicket was a bit sticky and Adil Rashid is for sure a very good bowler. I didn’t think our shot selection was the best. We knew he was the dangerman on this wicket for sure, and we still gave him some wickets as well.”
Translation for baseball fans: The ball was darting around the plate, and the pitcher was on his game. We were swinging at balls way out of the strike zone. We knew he was the ace on their staff, and we still gave him some easy outs.
Reggie! bars, a candy blast from the past
If you watched the aforelinked conversation with Reggie Jackson, you may have noticed the orange box sitting on the desk. These are Reggie! bars—chocolate, peanuts, caramel—and named after the man himself. I ate them as a kid growing up in New York. They were delicious.
The story behind them is when Jackson was with Baltimore Orioles in 1976 and hoping to get traded, he boasted in an interview,
If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.
Jackson signed with the New York Yankees in 1977, and after a stellar post season (where Jackson earned his nickname "Mr. October"), The Curtiss Candy Company rebranded an existing candy—the Bun Bar—to Reggie!, and Jackson’s boast came true.
They were discontinued in 1981, then revived briefly in the early 1990s. As of 2023 they're again available. You can buy a case (autographed, if you’d like) directly from Reggie Jackson’s website (or on Amazon), but at $70, it’s too much for me to indulge my nostalgia.
Reggie Jackson Tells The Truth About Racism
Reggie Jackson, asked during a tribute to Negro League Baseball about returning to Rickwood Field in Alabama, where he played Double-A baseball:
Coming back here is not easy. The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled.… I wouldn't wish it on anybody…. I would never want to do it again. I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say “the n— can’t eat here”. I would go to a hotel and they said “the n— can't stay here.” We went to Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner and they pointed me out with the N word. “He can't come in here.” Finley marched the whole team out.… He said we're going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers, we’ll go where we're wanted. Fortunately, I had a manager in Johnny McNamara that if I couldn't eat in the place, nobody would eat, we’d get food to travel. If I couldn't stay in a hotel, they’d drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay.
This is not the answer Fox Sports expected, but was definitely the one that was needed. A reminder that he’s talking about 1967. It’s not that long ago, practically within my lifetime.
Also, great examples on how to be an ally. You stand together. Either everyone is in, or no one’s in.
Be sure to scroll back to the beginning to hear Reggie call Willie Mays “a Baryshnikov on the baseball field.”