Playing Hard Ball: A Kent County Cricketer's Journey Into Big League Baseball

by E.T. Smith

A cultural comparison of two national games—cricket, English in origin, and American baseball—written from the viewpoint of a top-class practitioner of both codes. E.T. Smith, the young Cambridge University and Kent batsman, has spent the winters since 1998 in Spring Training with the New York Mets baseball team. It has enabled him to contrast and compare arguably the two most iconic of sports from the inside. Apart from learning two very different techniques, he learned that the sports' ultimate heroes, the Babe and the Don, might as well have come from different planets, and baseball's pristine Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a far cry from the ramshackle cricket museum at Lord's.

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction

213 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Mike Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes the greatest truths come from those outside. Seeing baseball through a cricketer’s eyes crystallized essential ideas about baseball, but also translates English cricket in terms even White Sox fans can understand.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was odd reading this style from a writer in his early twenties, easy to follow, pacy, but with an air of authority from an expert in the field rather than an enthusiastic professional cricketer. It was almost enough for me to become an advocate of the "private school makes all pupils confident" school of thought, which I have normally found overblown.

Smith went to a pre-season MLB practise session, hung around in New York during the playoffs while Mets and Yankees competed, visited the MLB Hall of Fame, and went to Compton to visit a kind of Born Again Cricket Team for Reformed Criminals. The first chapters were very strong, with Smith's engaging style mixed with considered points, and questioning the received wisdom when it comes to sports reporting.

Sometimes I felt he led with narrative over a less romantic story, namely that in a sport in which a team both loses and wins a third of its matches over a season, and each match is made up of hundreds of pitches, the result of an individual match is mostly just chance, which is tipped slightly in favour of the better team. Redemption stories, chokers and clutch players, and a city refusing to be beaten in the face of terrorism are good for writers of copy, but probably not justified.

Smith therefore gets to have his cake and eat it, questioning the coverage but also doing it himself, and the rationalist popping the Hall of Fame, American exceptionalism bubble embraces it when it comes to 9/11 and the enforced retirement of a player. Perhaps America was united, and I'm not in a position to argue otherwise, but it still sounded a bit schmaltzy. He still had useful bits of wisdom throughout, but the latter chapters weren't as fully formed and didn't have the polish that was in the earlier sections of the book, which constrasted his cricket experience with baseball more.

Generally I found the contrasts to be the best aspects of the book, which were both a point of difference, but also the best executed, and more of what I'd expected from Mike Marquesee. Although he's a good writer, the travel writer and political observer personas were not as strong even though they still had useful things to say, perhaps from experience as a writer in The Times as a young, uncapped, cricketer (imagine that now!).

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Ed Smith is a fantastic narrator and I feel like I 'get' baseball a lot more now.

[Rohit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book for the fans of both sports...or either.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ed Smith compares baseball and his beloved cricket. Fascinating book.

[Jonathan P · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive debut from a (then) 26 year professional cricketer and Cambridge educated wordsmith. Do not expect in-depth technical analysis of the similarities and differences between baseball and cricket, Ed Smith is at his best when exploring the cultural and social sides of the two sports.

Both sports have an apparent shared obsession with statistics and tradition. Perhaps counter-intuitively, baseball is largely played in a "gentlemanly" way, cricket's genteel reputation largely hides a heritage of brashness and betting.

Possibly the strongest chapter is on the topic of books and sports writing. It goes some way to explaining why there are few top quality sports books produced in Britain compared to the US. Leading American writers are happy to take on the topic (Hemingway, Updike and several Pulitzer prize winners are mentioned), yet it is hard to imagine their British equivalents sullying their reputations with such a task.

An unexpected punch delivered by Smith is criticism of certain US claims made on behalf of baseball that remind him strongly of similar claims made on behalf of cricket and long since abandoned with the loss of empire and the rise of cricket in South Asia.

A promising start then, and, ten years on, Smith's writing has developed and is more assured. Well worth exploring it further by looking first at his ESPN Cricinfo articles.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/...

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intelligently written, this comparison of cricket and baseball by a knowledgeable author was a highlight of my summer reading. Giving enough background of baseball for inexperienced followers, backed up with some good interviews and history, this book was able to compare and contrast the two similar sports. Most lasting in my memory is the discussion of how the balance between 'outs' and 'scoring shots' lies differently in the two sports - baseball pitchers are under pressure to keep it very tight and accurate and it's a disaster to concede runs, whereas a (cricket) bowler can be comparatively quite inaccurate and concede quite a few runs - it's the batsmen who are under great pressure to avoid getting out.

[Mike Redding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book and the contrast of the two games.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short comparative analysis of baseball and cricket based on a small number of trips made by the author (a Kent batsman) to the USA. A crisp and insightful volume.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less memoir, more intellectual musing on the differences between baseball and cricket. I don't read a lot of sports nonfiction, but I have to admit this was quite different from what I expected!

[Paul McGuiness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classy read