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My Anglophilia has taken a giant leap forward, along with my obsessive desire to learn.
Cricket. For many years I've had a waxing and waning curiosity about it, but not having any opportunities to see it being played, the written materials I've had to try to learn how it works have been woefully inadequate. I've also been wary of the fact that matches can take several days, so I thought maybe it was less exciting than my interest warranted. When we still lived in Fishers, I once saw a group of young guys with a pitch and wickets set up in the park near our house. I think that was the only time I've seen any sign of it in the U.S.
Recently, I found an explanation written by David Morgan-Mar, the creator of Irregular Webcomic and Darths and Droids web comics, several GURPS components, and many other geeky things. His explanation actually clicked, especially the parts for people who already understand baseball (which I used to follow quite heavily before the major league strike of 1994 pissed me off and reminded me I had a life). I'd thought about getting a match or two to watch to see if I can follow and enjoy it on DirecTV since we picked it up, but subscribers can only get a whole season package for $199. Poking around on the 'net and finding videos of matches has helped, though, especially since the Twenty20 Internationals tournament is going on in England right now, involving a shorter version of the game played in a few hours that has been perfect for me to watch and learn.
An odd thing about liking the sport (so far) is that I don't have any sort of home team for whom to cheer. In the Twenty20 series, it's mostly South Asian and/or British Commonwealth or former Commonwealth countries, all of whom I could support. :-) I have also learned that Purdue has a team which practices once a week in a field out by the airport, so that might be worth following as well.
Cricket. For many years I've had a waxing and waning curiosity about it, but not having any opportunities to see it being played, the written materials I've had to try to learn how it works have been woefully inadequate. I've also been wary of the fact that matches can take several days, so I thought maybe it was less exciting than my interest warranted. When we still lived in Fishers, I once saw a group of young guys with a pitch and wickets set up in the park near our house. I think that was the only time I've seen any sign of it in the U.S.
Recently, I found an explanation written by David Morgan-Mar, the creator of Irregular Webcomic and Darths and Droids web comics, several GURPS components, and many other geeky things. His explanation actually clicked, especially the parts for people who already understand baseball (which I used to follow quite heavily before the major league strike of 1994 pissed me off and reminded me I had a life). I'd thought about getting a match or two to watch to see if I can follow and enjoy it on DirecTV since we picked it up, but subscribers can only get a whole season package for $199. Poking around on the 'net and finding videos of matches has helped, though, especially since the Twenty20 Internationals tournament is going on in England right now, involving a shorter version of the game played in a few hours that has been perfect for me to watch and learn.
An odd thing about liking the sport (so far) is that I don't have any sort of home team for whom to cheer. In the Twenty20 series, it's mostly South Asian and/or British Commonwealth or former Commonwealth countries, all of whom I could support. :-) I have also learned that Purdue has a team which practices once a week in a field out by the airport, so that might be worth following as well.
