My spouse is a huge NY Yankees fan, which can be veeeeeery annoying, lol. Especially since our local cable tv provider carries the YES Network (Yankee Entertainment System), which means that EVERY SINGLE YANKEE GAME FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON IS ON TV, and she has to watch all of them.
Now I have nothing against sports in general, or baseball specifically - but it is very annoying when for basically half of the year she has to watch a baseball game every day! Especially since I am a Dodger fan, and she is watching the damned Yankees!
To give you an idea of how annoying this is, our wedding anniversary is October 12, and every year when I want to go out to celebrate it over a nice dinner, if the Yankees are playing in the postseason she wants to stay home and watch the game.
Anyway, I have been sitting here tonight catching up on some reading for work while she watches the game. My usual place if I am home while the game is on, so at least we are together even if I am not watching. But I do glance up periodically just to see what is happening.
Soooooo, to get to the point, the last time I looked up a commercial for AFLAC insurance was on. And here is my pet peeve: AFLAC uses a goose for their commercials. If you live in the US, you are probably familiar with it - the goose that runs round squawking, “AFLAC!” all the time. So why do they keep referring to the damned goose as a duck?!?
Are people really that stupid? If some ad rep thinks it is cute to have everyone call the goose a duck, it isn’t.
Comments
As a fellow Dodgers fan...
I can certainly understand the frustration which comes with being exposed to all that Yankees baseball . Maybe the baseball doctor can prescribe that you watch the Dodgers go all the way while the Yankees are forced to sit at home again.
However, I need to inform you that the AFLAC animal is, in fact, an American Pekin Duck, descended from a Chinese breed brought over in the 19th century. They are bred mostly for meat, and according to a couple of bird websites, have a more mild disposition than most waterfowl, which probably made it easier to film for the early commercials back before they started using CGI to insert the duck in commercials.
The noticeable difference between the American Pekin duck, and the white geese, is the bill of the birds. I don't watch television so I can't say which AFLAC commercials you may have seen and commented on, but the couple I watched out of curiosity on YouTube do indeed have the duck with its broader and longer bill, not the goose.
The story how the AFLAC duck was chosen is also interesting. The ad agency that AFLAC was using at the time presented 2 commercials, one with the duck, one with Ray Romano. The GEICO gecko had just started appearing in commercials 6 months prior. Someone at the ad agency suggested the duck because it has a distinctive 'quack' that could be mistaken for 'AFLAC'. The CEO of AFLAC admits that at the time, none of the board of directors understood the duck commercial, other than it seemed to be making fun on the AFLAC name, but viewing trials showed that the duck was 33% more popular than Ray Romano . So they went with the duck commercial on Jan. 1st, 1999 and if Paul Harvey were here, he would say 'Now you know the rest of the story.'
Rooting for the Dodgers,
Cicero2K
'Otium cum dignitate'
I would bet Ray was pissed about that.
Thank you for that quite interesting bit of trivia. (I mentally collect fluff like that to wow friends and relies at random times.)
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Good to know…….
Like most people, when I think of a duck it is brown - not white. My acquaintance with ducks comes from shooting them when I was younger - generally Mallards. My father and I used to go duck hunting annually; it was one of the few occasions where we could actually enjoy time together, probably because we simply spent quiet time together enjoying our time out in nature and the challenge afforded to us of who could take the most fowl out of the air.
To be completely honest, I was not even aware that there was a huge market for raising ducks for food. The only duck I have ever eaten was in fact a duck I shot, lol.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
damned Yankees!
Dallas,
Are your southern roots showing? Damned Yankees indeed. ;o)
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Perhaps just a little…….
But as Los Angeles is actually my home town, and also where I attended college, I have always been a Dodger fan.
The funny thing is that my father and most of his family were actually Yankee fans when I was growing up. My maternal grandfather was a Braves fan, Atlanta being the only team in the South at that time, but pretty much everyone on my father’s side were serious Yankee fans. So, as far as my southern roots showing……. Maybe?
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
I'd have thought
You had more important things to complain about, living in the US, like the destruction of democracy. Baseball, isn't that a game for those who can't play cricket.
Angharad
Give poor Dallas a break!
Two weeks ago, she was taking incoming for posting “too much” about US politics. Yes indeed, things are catastrophically bad over here. Occasionally, though, even the most active must take a moment and touch some grass. Complaining about the New York Yankees (and, it must be said, their fans) is a fine, non-political American tradition, and we have very few of those left!
Go Red Sox!
— Emma
Thank you for the support…….
But as my wife would say, I root for the Dodgers and whoever is playing against the Red Sox!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Such a conundrum!
If the Sox win, you won’t have to endure the Yankees until Spring. :)
— Emma
Yes, but I will have to watch that cheating jerk……..
Alex Cora, or have you forgotten that he was instrumental in not just developing the video system that Houston used to steal signs, but he was also suspended for an entire season by MLB. Any true Dodger fan like myself will never forget that he stole a World Series from us in 2017, and even when it was proven, the league refused to void the wins by Houston.
Apparently cheaters do prosper - but this girl knows how to hold a grudge, and I will NEVER root for any team which employs his cheating ass.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
a game for those who can't play cricket.
More like a game for those who don't understand cricket.
I have a friend from South Africa. He and his wife tried to teach a group of us how to play cricket. I couldn't even work out how to throw (bowl?) the ball to the batsman (batter) It seems the rules require the bowler to keep his elbow straight. That hampers control of just where the the ball is going.
No wonder in official game the batsman gets to wear all sorts of padding. Not that I'd be likely to get any real speed on the ball without bending the elbow. Also I never understood the purpose of the wicket or how it affects the game.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Wait……..
There are rules to Cricket?
It seems a shame to spoil such a weird game with rules!
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Spectator sport
I took a British friend who was here for the World Cup years ago to a baseball game. He had a great time. I asked him what he enjoyed most, and he said it was that you can buy beer in an American stadium. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Interesting!
The one and only time I attended a cricket match, at the MCC, it seemed like spectators watched the game for about 20 minutes, then headed into one of the many, many establishments inside the park that provided wine, beer, and everything even stronger. There they spent the rest of the day drinking, eating, and drinking some more. Occasionally they might look up at one of the monitors or wander to a window to see the "action" on the field. Sometime in the evening they were all wheeled home, six sheets to the wind, and the match ended the better part of a week later. I don't remember the score; I don't even remember who won. I'm not sure anyone much cared at that point . . . .
— Emma
An Englishman once explained to me
why cricket was so popular (this was before profesional cricket, twenty20 etc etc).
It's the only game where both spectators AND players can have tea DURING the game.
Oh, how I miss the time when the West Indies dominated the game and the disputes were over games in artificial light and aluminium bats (and underarm bowling).
I can remember attending……
A New Orleans Saints game, or as they were known at that time the New Orleans Ain’ts, back in the early ‘80’s when I was assigned to NAS New Orleans while working on my Masters at Tulane. The weirdest thing was being able to order a Scotch while watching the game, and sitting in the crowd drinking it. Not something common to most stadiums, but the Superdome did it.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Our local pro football team ...
... home ground was called 'The Baseball Ground' for some reason. They've since moved to a posh new stadium called Pride Park. By 'football' I mean the game played mostly with feet btw. So perhaps the US game started here in the UK? We seem to have invented a lot of world sports at which we then proceed to lose internationally :) The women's rugby world cup triumph is a notable (and welcome) exception to the rule.
Actually, the game of baseball……..
Developed in the United States in the early 1800’s. It was loosely based on the English games of cricket and rounders, and legend has it that it was invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, NY - hence why the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown. However, that story has been debunked by historians.
The rules for modern baseball were first laid down by Alexander Cartwright in 1845. Cartwright was a member of the NY Knickerbocker Baseball Club. The development of the game is believed by historians to be a community effort, with Cartwright being the first to actually codify the rules of the game, including things such as the diamond shaped infield, foul lines, the three strike rule, and eliminating the dangerous practice of throwing the ball at the runner to tag them out.
Doubleday, born in Balston Spa, NY (a town located just a few miles from my house and the county seat of Saratoga County, NY) in 1819, was mistakenly credited with inventing the game in Cooperstown in 1839, but he was actually a cadet at West Point in 1839. He graduated from West Point in 1842, and served in the US Army through the civil war - actually being the one who fired the first cannon shot against Confederate positions in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, which is often referred to as the start of the war although it was not the actual first shot fired in anger. Doubleday commanded troops in multiple battles, including the Second Battle of Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, where he was instrumental in halting the Confederate assault on the first day of the battle. He was wounded by a shell fragment in the aftermath of Pickett’s Charge and served out the reminder of the war in mostly administrative duties, although he did command the troops defending Washington DC when forces under Confederate General Juba Early threatened the city. He remained in the service until 1873, retiring to New Jersey until his death in 1893.
Historians today believe that he was given credit for inventing the game of baseball as there was a desire to provide a patriotic element to the game, rather than simply state that it was “a community effort and developed from two English games”, lol. Apparently there is some question as to even the veracity of Cartwright’s input into the game, although he was inducted into the Hall of Fame as the “father of baseball”. Historians have shown that many of the rules he codified were actually put in place by the NY Gothams years before his efforts, and also that some of the things credited to him were not instituted until the Interclub Convention of 1857, some twelve years after Cartwright supposedly “invented” them.
Either way, the game as it is played now, has developed in this country over many years - but there is little doubt that it traces it’s origins back to cricket and rounders.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Cricket
I am an Englishman who has never had any time for any ball game, and have never been a fan of any team. The purist version of Cricket; the five day test match is really only for the stalwarts and specialists. The language excludes most people, but then gridiron football is equally obscure. Sometimes they have programmes on the TV late at night in the UK showing American Football. It does make some sort of sense when there is a kindly commentator explaining the various plays. I did watch some of the matches of the recent Women's Rugby World Cup. There was no leeway given by the variously beefy ladies in the national teams, but it was all good natured in the end, and I enjoyed it for the skill and fair play.
Andy Griffith Football Story from 1953
Andy Griffith did a great talk about football in 1953. You might get an understanding of gridiron football seen through the eyes of someone who'd never heard of it before...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNxLxTZHKM8
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Viaduct
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHMrLpDHXc0
Love, Andrea Lena
I Want My Shirt
From The Cocoanuts, the Marx Brother's zany "Toreador Song" parody from Carmen. In my imaginary updated remake of the movie, I have Groucho remarking, "Now that's what I call getting Bizet with it." {ducking...don't ask why}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osm5RMf2cpM.
Sammy
Try being a Pirates fan
Decades and decades of losing apart from 3 years 2014-2016 where they made post season only to immediately lose. Set the North American record for consecutive losing seasons at 22...
NO sympathy for a Dodgers fan..or any other team for that matter LOL
I cried the day Clemente died
I cried the day Clemente died!
Love, Andrea Lena
Now there was a man who you could look up to…….
He was a real hero. The kind of athlete who children can and should idolize.
Unlike many of the current crop of athletes who only seem to care about how much money they can make, and what they can spend it on. There are still a few athletes worth serving as a role model for the youth of our world, but many of them are little better than thugs.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Celemente
There was a recent documentary about him. It aired on The History Channel. I don't know, but imagine it would be repeated or maybe on demand.
My point remains that since 1993 the Pirates have been puke aside from those three years,,
Me too!
I was 7, but imagine I would have at any age.
Philistines!
You sound like our friendly neighbours the Kiwis. They pretend to like us but they display signs that say
"We support New Zealand and anybody playing Australia!"
We give them some bragging rights because we can beat them at anything other than Rugby Union.
Cricket is a wonderful game. When I was a teenager, still at school, I used to sell ice-cream at the matches on weekends. My mum worked in the pub situated at the entrance to the local ground, which was unsurprisingly called "The Cricketers"
In those long-gone days local matches lasted three days and a "Test" (an international match) lasted five, none of this namby-pamby one-day or 20-Over stuff.
It's not so difficult to understand. Each team has 11 players. One team goes in to bat, which means two of them stand at the wickets on each end of the pitch. The wickets (or stumps) are three upright sticks with little bits of wood balanced on top called bails. The other team spreads out over the field, where they can hopefully stop the two guys (or girls these days) from scoring. There is one person throwing the ball towards a battter, which he is allowed to do six times but must keep his throwing arm straight, no bending. That is called an over. Don't ask me why.
If any of his six balls hits the stumps or knocks off a bail or the batter hits a ball into the air and it gets caught by one of the team fielding before it hits the ground then he is out and has to leave the field and be replaced by a new batter until ten men are out. There are other ways to get a batter out, like leg-before-wicket, or stumped or run out, but I won't go into the finer points of the game.
Their score is the total number of times that all the batters have run between the wickets or scored a "four" or a 'six" That's when they have hit a ball past all the fielders and it's gone out of the boundary, but a 'six' has to do it without touching the ground.
When all eleven men on one team have had a turn the other team gets a go and tries to score more 'runs' to be victorious. If rain stops play they may have to settle for a draw.
There are intervals for drinks and lunch and tea so that nobody (including the spectators) gets too tired.
There, that wasn't so difficult, was it?
As succinct and clear an explanation as I have ever heard
Thank you Joanne for that clear explanation, and also for supporting a sport which I have enjoyed watching on many a summers day.
My own grasp of the game is totally theoretical. I recall as an eleven year old being told by a kindly teacher that my fielding position was "go and stand out of the way". He also kindly explained that sitting on the grass in the outfield (a long way from the action to American readers) making daisy chains was not an essential part of the game. Pitty, as I was good at that.
The thing with watching cricket, especially at village green level, is that the tactics of the game are absorbing, but the ethos of the game is overpowering. All human life is there to be observed. The rather self satisfied "village captain" who has never grown up, the young handsome batsman whose girlfriend you just know is going to make the teas, the cunning older bowler, usually the pub landlord, who knows every trick in the book. But all of it conducted at a languid pace, with both sides applauding fair play.
Emma, you saw a match at the MCC? Unfortunately, at the large grounds, the place is full of corporate hospitality suites. Lots of networking (drinking), and little interest in the game. If you came to a county match at Trent Bridge between Notts and local rivals, either Derbyshire or Yorkshire, you wouldn't see much wandering off to open a bottle of Pimm's. Those three counties used to produce the best fast bowlers in Britain, all of them ex coal miners.
I get that sport which is designed to be viewed in TV has to be fast and furious. But there are far more subtleties to the old sports, where a match can be played for five days and still end up a thrilling draw.
Lucy xx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
Invention
Cricket used to be popular in the US. In fact, Alexander Cartwright, the man who wrote down the oldest set of baseball rules that survive (from 1845) was a cricketeer. He belonged to a Manhattan athletic club that played whenever they could, but being city dwellers they didn't have the space or time for the traditional village or gentry version.
Poor and working-class people played a game called town ball, basically cricket stripped of everything that made it difficult to have the time and space to play. Only one batsman/batter. No wicket or bails. Run a circuit of safe stations (bases) to score a run. Make the pitcher throw hittable balls, and limit the number of chances a batter has to score.
Cartwright's friends began playing town ball when they didn't have time for cricket. The group tasked him with writing down a set of rules and he came up with 21. One of which was, the home team pays the umpire. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Please see my latest posting above…….
As it has a much more detailed explanation. Much of the “history” of baseball is not true, including a good deal of what has been believed about Cartwright. Even Major League Baseball’s own historians have debunked a lot of what Cartwright supposedly did. It appears that much of what Cartwright was credited with was actually devised by William R. Wheaton for the Gotham Club in 1837.
MLB's Official Historian John Thorn wrote, Cartwright has "a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame on which every word of substance is false.” So, just as the legend of Abner Doubleday is false, so is most of what is believed to be true about Alex Cartwright.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Cartwright
Cartwright is nonetheless a fascinating fellow. He reportedly walked to California from New York in 1849 during the Gold Rush, teaching baseball along the way. In San Francisco, he joined the crew of a clipper ship that hauled laundry back and forth between SF and the Chinese community in Honolulu. He eventually became a British citizen and served as fire chief of Honolulu under the British. He opposed the US annexation, believing that British protection or independence were both better for Hawaii than a US takeover. Someone should make a movie about the man or the legend. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Poor and working class people
Have always played cricket in the industrial North of England. A cricket pitch is a luxury, you can easily play on a bit of rough ground.
Famously, many of the Indian and West Indian legendary cricket players of the sixties and seventies started by playing in the street. It was only the money available from basketball "scholarships" which saw the potential players of the West Indies take up basketball instead. So no more Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Gordon Grenage. In my childhood, they were sporting giants, both literally and metaphorically. My gran first took me to watch Derbyshire play Yorkshire in 1975. Through my teens she took me with her friends to watch Michael Holding demolish batting sides. Not a lot of prawn sandwiches or bottles of Pimms in Chessie back then.
By the way, whilst Baseball is popular in the US, and apparently Japan and the far east too, it is supposed to only have 500 million fans worldwide.
Due to the huge popularity of Cricket in the Indian subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbean and the UK, it is supposed to have five times that number of fans, and that's nowt compared to all the football (soccer) fans. Just saying.
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
Many “American” sports are not as popular outside……
Of the US, but you do see their popularity growing throughout the world.
Basketball is a prime example. Often the rules are slightly different, but it remains that the sport originated in this country and has grown internationally. Baseball is another good example; it has grown significantly not just in Asia, but also throughout Latin America and South America. Just look at the rosters of most MLB teams for proof of that fact - not to mention the World Baseball Classic and the multiple countries which field teams in it.
Even American Football is spreading internationally in the past several decades.
Here is the ranking of most popular professional sports in the United States by viewership:
1 American Football 188.4 Million
2 Baseball 171.1 Million
3 Basketball 155.9 Million
4 Ice Hockey 136.2 Million
5 Golf 123 Million
6 NASCAR 71 Million
7 Soccer 10.7 Million
Several things need to be mentioned regarding these rankings. First, the viability of a sport for television broadcast is key in how popular it is in this country. Soccer for instance suffers in viewership due to the fact that the game does not lend itself well to television broadcasts; the fact that the game does not have regular timeouts or breaks wherein a network can insert advertising into a broadcast means that it will never become a regular television sport. Baseball has breaks between each half of an inning, while football and basketball actually have scheduled “TV timeouts” for broadcasters to insert commercial breaks to generate income.
Also, these rankings do not take into account college sports, like football or basketball, which are also very popular and are broadcast via television as well. Nor do they take into account the fact that some sports are more popular in specific regions; NASCAR being a good example as its popularity in the southeast has always been higher than other regions.
In our current global society, the bleed through of cultures between societies is faster than ever before, and sport is just a part of this. There are few sports which are totally native to this country - lacrosse and basketball being two examples; but as we are a country of immigrants, each group immigrating to our country has brought their own cultures and sports with them. Many of them have been modified here to become something different - baseball and football among them, becoming new sports which are even now moving from the US back to the rest of the world.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
NASCAR ... popularity in the southeast
No surprise there, since many NASCAR drivers, including the legendary Junior Johnson, began their careers as moonshine runners. This background helped them develop exceptional driving skills and knowledge of car mechanics, which they later applied in professional racing.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
I used to have
a pet peeve but it choked on a treat and died
Co-workers who play cricket
I live and work in Boston, and at one time a majority of my co-workers (all of them Indian ex-pats) were off playing cricket on weekends. I don't know whether there's a season for it, but it seemed they were often heading out after work for practice, or travelling on Fridays for an away game.
I have to say, they absolutely beamed with joy as they went.
But my point is, they had plenty of other teams to play against. Here. I was quite surprised.
clubs
There are cricket clubs here on the West Coast too. Even a youth cricket league. If you pass by an athletic center in western Riverside County, you may see some young people playing cricket. :)
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Cricket has never really taken hold in this area…..….
The most popular summer team sports for adults to play in this area are softball, soccer, flag football, and there are several lacrosse leagues as well as a few sand volleyball leagues which have taken off in the past decade. Of course there are the usual things like golf and tennis, and pickle ball has become increasingly popular in the area over the past few years.
In the winter you see a lot of basketball leagues, bowling leagues, and of course there is indoor tennis and pickle ball. But one of the largest winter sports in the area for both children and adults is indoor soccer. There are multiple large facilities in this area with indoor soccer leagues.
There is one cricket league that I know of in the area, which is very popular among the Indian immigrant families - the Empire State Cricket League, but it is not nearly as popular as other sports in this area among the general population.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus