Why did Baseball spread worldwide, and not Gridiron Football?

[Superdude]

Because Gridiron is played by barely sentient yobos with the size, shape and IQ of a fridge.

You know literally nothing about Football.

I think Football hasn't caught on because it is actually very complex and requires a relatively large amount of knowledge on how to play.

Soccer, baseball, basketball are all very simple comparatively.

 

[Aberblue]

Without wishing to decry anyone's favourite sport, the plain fact is that football is a real world game, and was established around large parts of the globe by the early 20th century.

American football, or Gridiron if you prefer, became a dominant sport in the USA, but in almost every other country in the world it's either a minority sport or simply doesn't exist.

I'd dispute the assertion that baseball is a world sport. Outside North America and Japan, it too is a minority interest.

On another point, which ball team game would you say is the second most popular in the world? American Football? Baseball? Cricket? Hockey? Rugby?

 

[Blackwood]

It seems to me that while many Americans actually attempt to learn, understand, enjoy and partake in football/soccer, some of the English members care nothing for the understanding of American football, which is just slightly important in a thread about American football!

On another note, the sport is very complex and difficult to understand for some. It takes time and effort to fully grasp the strategy of the game, which is why I think it holds an attraction for many. To call the sport "dumb", "dimwitted" or otherwise is just plainly incorrect, regardless of the stereotype. By comparison, baseball is relatively simple and easy to play (although perhaps that's just my American-ness acting up), much like football/soccer is. Why hasn't it spread? Probably because of the same reason Cricket hasn't spread in the United States.

 

[Jape]

Cricket hasn't spread in the United States.

I read somewhere it was quite a popular secondary sport until around the 1880s in the USA, probably got overshadowed by Baseball if anything.

 

[Will Ritson]

On another point, which ball team game would you say is the second most popular in the world? American Football? Baseball? Cricket? Hockey? Rugby?

Cricket, thanks to the Indian sub-continent market, and proven by the scale of the IPL earlier this year.

Rugby Union comes way down the list, despite their governing body (the IRB)claiming the RU World Cup to be the "third biggest" sporting event after the Olympics and FIFA World Cup. Some of the TV figures release by the International Rugby Board are so false that it is shameless. They make Comical Ali sound honest.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Whilst I guess your post is tongue in cheek, it's worth highlighting that what you've said is far from correct, and reflectsthe mythology that many in English soccer take as fact.

Association Football was codified in 1863, American Football from the 1860s onwards resulting in the adoption of agreed rules by major colleges in 1873. Rugby Football was codified in 1871. Before these dates clubs played their own games to their own rules. One of the biggest myths is that rugby union derived from soccer. It didn't both were various forms of football played by different English schools in the early 19th century. At Rugby they had one set of rules, at Harrow they had another. Eton and Winchester also had their own, which still exist in a limited form today.

The FA was formed when several clubs met to agree rules. Not all clubs agreed with their interpretation, notably Blackheath FC, who wanted to retain hacking in the game, and continued to play under a varient of early Rugby School rules, thus becoming the "first" rugby club. In Yorkshire Sheffield FC and Hallam FC had their own rules too, but both a generally considered to be the longest existing soccer clubs.

The Webb Ellis myth that he took the ball in hand and ran with it, thus splitting rugby from soccer, was a work of fiction created by the Rugby Football Union to secure their history of the game in the light of the formation of the Northern Union, or Rugby League.

The final myth is "soccer". It's an English term, not an Americanism. Many parts of England where soccer isn't the dominant code of football still refer to FA rules as "soccer" and rugby rules as "football". Where I am from, in south Cumbria, it is commonplace to refer to a rugby ball as a "football" and a soccer ball as just that, although much of that is because rugby league is the dominant code. My uncle, for instance, played professional rugby league, and considered himslef a "footballer", not a "soccer player".

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Fhistory.htm

The Cambridge Rules were the first codified rules of football widely used. The Football Association used them as a foundation for the Association Rules. I find it hard to believe that Gridiron was played in the twelfth century in any recorded and recognisable form. Your so-called myth reflects a focus on official and consistent rules. I make no claim that rugby union derived from soccer. I didn't say that "soccer" is an Americanism, in fact I imply it's roots in the word association (Football Association). My point is that 'football' pre-dates the rules of 'soccer' by centuries, but it refers to a game more like soccer than Rugby or Gridiron. The village rough and tumbles of the early middle ages still continue, but the meaning of football has more to do with the game that evolved from that. The game that focused on moving the ball with your foot is the true home of the word.

 

[zoomar]

American football is, as others have said a very complex sport. More importantly, it is very expensive to properly equip and train an American football team. The minimum effective size for a squad is 44 people, 22 each on defense and offense, allowing for one replacement player per position. The uniform involves very expensive pads and helmets, all fitted to each individual player. And, finally, because of the extreme specialization US football demands of its players, the range in size, strength, and stamina varies greatly. In places where the sport is unknown, it would be virtually impossible to start building interest in youth clubs and schools.

Baseball, on the otherhand, requires no special physical attributes of its players than good hand-eye coordination and a reasonably good ability to throw, catch, hit a ball with a stick, and run in short bursts. Normal people can play baseball, and the basic rules are much simpler to learn and understand. Like chess, the "deep" rules are very complex and sophisticated, but the game can be learned at the basic player's level very quickly.

However, I would take issue with the initial post's basic premise. Other than Japan and some Latin American countries, professional baseball is a very minor sport, although there are youth leagues in many other places. US football is popular in Mexico, and Canadian-rules Football is almost entirely the same game. US Football also seems to gaining in popularity in Europe, but this may be more for its spectacle rather than sport...rather like Ultimate Fighting Championships.

 

[Riain]

Threads about football codes often turn into parochial discussions about who's best, first etc. That said, Australian football is the best and all other codes suck arse

As for why some codes spread and others didn't, it's easy to point to colonisation and occupation, but Britain didn't colonise France or Italy and soccer and rugby are big enough there. So, buggered if I know the answer to that.

Also, as an indication of Baseball's popularity around the world, Australian players can only go places if they go to the US to play, they can't make a go of it here.

 

[Fletch]

Threads about football codes often turn into parochial discussions about who's best, first etc. That said, Australian football is the best and all other codes suck arse

As for why some codes spread and others didn't, it's easy to point to colonisation and occupation, but Britain didn't colonise France or Italy and soccer and rugby are big enough there. So, buggered if I know the answer to that.

Also, as an indication of Baseball's popularity around the world, Australian players can only go places if they go to the US to play, they can't make a go of it here.

Just a thought but Britain was a superpower in cultural terms also in the 19th century. Perhaps that might be another reason. I believe a Scot founded the first football club in Argentina for example..

 

[Marius]

Baseball is relatively popular in South Africa, but is nowhere close to being as popular and widely played as cricket, rugby union, and soccer. I have never seen gridiron ever played in South Africa. My brother tells me its quite an interesting sport once a person has got a hang of the rules and nuances of the game. However, I think his knowledge comes almost exclusively from playing Gridiron on an X-Box.

 

[Flocculencio]

It hasn't spread because it has the same disadvantages rugby has with none of the advantages.

Rugby was in many ways an upper/middle class game because these people, unlike the working classes did not depend on manual ability to work. If a lawyer played rugby and smashed his leg he could still correspond from his desk and take a hamson cab to court or whatever without too much dificulty. The same was not true of the factory worker or miner or longshoreman. Thus, in England soccer became the sport of the working classes.

However, as the British Empire spread, rugby and cricket spread through the English-style public schools that were set up throughout the British Empire and the working class football/middle class rugby divide was perpetuated- for example, in Singapore school-level rugby tends to be played mainly by the schools which were started in the late 19th or early 20th C along the lines of public schools while the state schools set up since Independence tend to play soccer. India, for some reason, seems to have been the big exception where rugby and soccer were eschewed by both rich and poor in favour of cricket.

Now, unlike rugby, gridiron developed pretty late as others have said and lacked the same "old boy" network to carry it around the world while still having the injury problems that might have made the masses in other countries less eager to pick it up- I don't know but I'd assume that it's a good guess that American football originated from the rugby playing preppies of the 19th C Ivy League whereas the common man's sport would have been baseball. Am I right?

Baseball isn't a good comparison to cricket's development- outside North America and Japan it's very minor.

 

[mishery]

Well there is the issue of cost. To play football you need something that passes as a ball and anywhere bigger than a few square yards. To play American Football you need a ton of kit. The reason that it won't take off around the world is that it won't get played in schools cos they would require a huge sum of money for equipment.

 

[mishery]

The other problem for American football is timing of the game. I know a lot of people who find the endless breaks a complete turn off while actually enjoying the game play. It's a cultural thing, if you grow up with team games that are continuous (football, rugby league) or fairly continuous (rugby union) it is extremely dull to what a game where there is twice as much time in breaks than there is actual playing.

 

[Wozza]

It hasn't spread because it has the same disadvantages rugby has with none of the advantages.

Rugby was in many ways an upper/middle class game because these people, unlike the working classes did not depend on manual ability to work. If a lawyer played rugby and smashed his leg he could still correspond from his desk and take a hamson cab to court or whatever without too much dificulty. The same was not true of the factory worker or miner or longshoreman. Thus, in England soccer became the sport of the working classes.

However, as the British Empire spread, rugby and cricket spread through the English-style public schools that were set up throughout the British Empire and the working class football/middle class rugby divide was perpetuated- for example, in Singapore school-level rugby tends to be played mainly by the schools which were started in the late 19th or early 20th C along the lines of public schools while the state schools set up since Independence tend to play soccer. India, for some reason, seems to have been the big exception where rugby and soccer were eschewed by both rich and poor in favour of cricket.

Now, unlike rugby, gridiron developed pretty late as others have said and lacked the same "old boy" network to carry it around the world while still having the injury problems that might have made the masses in other countries less eager to pick it up- I don't know but I'd assume that it's a good guess that American football originated from the rugby playing preppies of the 19th C Ivy League whereas the common man's sport would have been baseball. Am I right?

Baseball isn't a good comparison to cricket's development- outside North America and Japan it's very minor.

Hmm, not sure about this hypothesis. As someone has said, in the North of England Rugby League is the working man's game, as Rugby Union is in Wales. I suspect that the upper-middle class preference for Rugby is a lateish development, some schools, eg Repton, stayed on soccer.

Soccer of course is a product of British economic, not political dominance, and is thus played where Britain had its strongest commercial relationships - South America and Europe, rather than political - anywhere in the Empire.

If one really wanted to theorise then it could perhaps be said that upper/upper-middle class colonial elites took rugby and cricket to the Empire whilst the rest of the middle class took soccer to their markets in S. America and Europe. I suspect that would be a generalisation too far though.


Also it is fun and practical. I can take or leave it myself but the preference of about 90% of males for the the game says quite a lot

 

[Grey Wolf]

I imagine US forces in Japan played baseball to wind down and it caught on with spectators, Japanese support personnel etc

Its much harder to have a bash at American Football for fun - I guess thats why the 'fun' version just seems to consist of chucking the ball from one person to another in a park...well, thats what American sitcoms etc seem to have father and son do for fun.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[merlin]

- I don't know but I'd assume that it's a good guess that American football originated from the rugby playing preppies of the 19th C Ivy League whereas the common man's sport would have been baseball. Am I right?

And didn't the rules of 'gridiron' derive from an American who was an anglo-phobe hence the need to change the character of the game from that which the British played - rugby e.g. allowing the 'forward pass'.

 

[kingdobbs]

Now, unlike rugby, gridiron developed pretty late as others have said and lacked the same "old boy" network to carry it around the world while still having the injury problems that might have made the masses in other countries less eager to pick it up- I don't know but I'd assume that it's a good guess that American football originated from the rugby playing preppies of the 19th C Ivy League whereas the common man's sport would have been baseball. Am I right?

Pretty much, yeah. American football didn't really bust out of the colleges until the 1900s and later, and didn't even have a solid professional league until the 1920s, but by then it had taken root in blue collar communities, particularly in the Midwest (whereas the blue collar appeal for baseball stayed mostly in the Northeast, where its roots were).

The other problem for American football is timing of the game. I know a lot of people who find the endless breaks a complete turn off while actually enjoying the game play. It's a cultural thing, if you grow up with team games that are continuous (football, rugby league) or fairly continuous (rugby union) it is extremely dull to what a game where there is twice as much time in breaks than there is actual playing.

Whereas I find the advantage of American football is that those endless breaks are the result of plays with definitive action, and I don't like that the "continuous action" of association football consists mostly of endless passes with no result, scoring tries that usually fail, and there isn't as much physical play (as there is in similar "passing" games like hockey or lacrosse or even rugby) to break that up.

Different strokes, I guess.

Its much harder to have a bash at American Football for fun - I guess thats why the 'fun' version just seems to consist of chucking the ball from one person to another in a park...well, thats what American sitcoms etc seem to have father and son do for fun.

At least as far as how intensely codified and structured the organized game has become, yeah. There are a lot of trappings that have to be stripped away to have a pickup game (yardage and down structure being primary; you usually have to resort to a "two completions equals a first down" with an undefined field), particularly the overly physical elements (depending on the group, they may insist on two-hand touch, or the popular "flag" variety in which every player wears a set of tear-away flags which indicate a stop; still others will demand tackling be permitted), but it's no less difficult to find a field and four end zone markers to play a for-funsies game.

And didn't the rules of 'gridiron' derive from an American who was an anglo-phobe hence the need to change the character of the game from that which the British played - rugby e.g. allowing the 'forward pass'.

Not really. In fact, not at all.

First off, the development of distinguishing the American game from its rugby roots is independent of the addition of the forward pass to the rules of the game. The latter occurred in 1905, as a result of a Presidential mandate during a year in which 19 players died on the field in intercollegiate matches; the addition of the forward pass was intended to open up what was becoming an increasingly closed-down and violent game. But by then, the scrimmage rules, down and distance rules, and the other pieces that distinguished the American game from rugby had already been long established (and possibly contributed to the rougher, more violent character of the game).

The father of many of these innovations was Walter Camp, who was an ardent supporter of national physical health, particularly amongst boys and young men, and his rules changes were intended to promote speed and athleticism in play over brute strength. Nothing I can find on him in a quick googling suggests any Anglophobic views, however, so that allegation may be apocryphal.

 

[Paul Spring]

Like others have said, baseball became really popular only in Japan and several countries around the Caribbean. Almost every country where it became popular did have a major US military presence at some point, but that obviously did not spread it anywhere, since the US has had a major military presence in several European countries for over 60 years and baseball never caught on in any of those countries.

American or gridiron football probably has had limited appeal for several reasons that people have mentioned - by the time it became really popular in the USA itself, the British had spread several sports around the world either through colonization or economic influence. It is a complicated, physically demanding sport with a large number of players on each team playing specialized roles and using fairly expensive equipment. The starting and stopping doesn't bother people who grew up with it, but it does seem to bother people who are used to sports with a more smooth, continuous style of play.

 

[Paul Spring]

I read somewhere it was quite a popular secondary sport until around the 1880s in the USA, probably got overshadowed by Baseball if anything.

Yes, cricket was reasonably popular in parts of the US until the late 19th century. For some reason, Philadelphia was the center of the sport in this country.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

The same here in Denmark even Gridiron is more common than Baseball here.

Yeah ... I've had to watch a football game on a Danish TV network because it was blacked out in my region of the country.