Simon Crerar, an Australian-born staff writer at BuzzFeed, put together this comical rundown of his first experience with Major League Baseball, which just officially opened its 2014 season with a two-game series between the Diamondbacks and Dodgers at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Crerar mostly points out oddities that we’ve come to accept as very normal, very necessary parts of the game.
Some highlights from Crerar’s writeup ...
- “Instead of a big oval with all the action taking place in the centre, baseball is played on a weird diamond, with all the action taking place in one corner.”
- “Everyone wears pyjamas. Fancy pyjamas, but still PJs.”
- “Half the time the players don’t seem to know what’s happening and the coach has to explain the rules.”
- “Incidentally, these guys wear GREAT leather belts.”
- “The balls are either super cheap or the MLB is super rich. Balls go into the crowd non-stop and never come back.”
How he ends it: “Thanks for coming Down Under, Major League Baseball! You blew our minds.”