When I walk to my local farmers market, I pass by a corner which has some sports facilities for a college. Often there are organized events going on, but sometimes there are informal ones too.
For example, not long before Halloween on the baseball field these guys got together to play in costume. I have no idea if this was some kind of frat initiation rite, some kind of intramural game, or possibly a sports team doing some kind of bonding event.
A few weeks later, cricket players were playing there. I watched for a little while, and I think I actually started to get the hang of the game a little bit, which had previously completely escaped me.
And now this winter, next to the baseball field, the college set up an ice rink with free admission to anyone who wanted to get in line.
One fun thing about cities is the big variety of things that can happen in just one place. On the fields where my son once played youth soccer you could also come across softball, rugby, flag football, lacrosse and ultimate frisbee. I never saw kickball, though.
Be ever-vigilant against the pickleballing invading hordes.
https://gothamist.com/news/utter-takeover-pickleball-invasion-prompts-turf-war-in-west-village
I have a feeling that this is a passing fad, like adult kickball leagues were for a couple of summers a few years ago, and Pokemon Go, and Susan Sarandon’s ping pong emporium, so this will sort itself out. Sue is still going strong though. I read recently that she’s moving into the old Caroline’s space (the legendary comedy club) and why any sane person would brave the horrors of contemporary Times Square to play ping pong is beyond me.
Pickleball is actually really fun & not a fad. It was invented long ago in WA but just in the past few years has gone fully mainstream. Now some big name athletes are even throwing money into it…
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-10-12/brady-clijsters-latest-big-name-athletes-to-invest-in-pickleball
…they might still sell them…but if you’re trying to get your head around the ins & outs of cricket my grandmother used to have a tea towel that had you covered
…& if that wasn’t clear enough…there’s always hoffnung’s description
…as it happens I’m a little surprised I found it at all & it’s just the few seconds from where that should be cued up I was thinking of…but that seems to be the full twin cassette set my folks had when I was a kid & a lot of it is pretty funny…though it might help to have a bit of context about who the hell he was
https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/the-tales-of-gerard-hoffnung/
I read Beyond a Boundary by the famous Marxist CLR James, and that was a good, but abstract introduction. Seeing it live really helped make ideas like protecting the wicket make a lot more sense.
…it seems fairly certain that at least some english people were capable of making it intelligible for others…since by the time I was a kid they’d successfully taught basically everywhere else in the world that played it to beat the english team hollow
…considering it a summer/fair-weather sport probably put a rainy little island at a natural disadvantage