OT- UConn Lacrosse

[Waquoit]

You don't seem very bright. You also have a penchant for criticizing things you know very little about, like sports. Let me help you: That is false.

Insufficient reply. Why is it false? I'm giving reasons for my opinions, all I'm getting back is stuff like false, wrong, you don't know the sport. Inform me, where's the skill? Running back and forth holding a ball in a basket while everyone else watches doesn't seem that hard to do. There's the basic throwing and catching that has a degree of skill, but nothing that approaches hitting a baseball or dribbling a soccer ball. I think the lack of skill needed is part of it's appeal for new players.

 

[Waquoit]

Too funny, I guess any bum on the street could play football well too.

"Bum" is your word here. But UConn's Donald Thomas went from not playing football in high school to a starting position in the NFL in 5 years. Antonio Gates never played football in college and became an all-time great almost overnight from.

 

[UCHuskies08]

No doubt, nobody could name lacrosse player other than Jim Brown. But 35 years from now I bet a somewhat common question will be "daddy what is baseball?". The answer will be: "it's a niche sport that is still pretty big Japan".

Baseball is awful. People are turning away from it in droves. Good riddance.

Do you really believe this? This is so absurd I'm not sure if I should respond seriously or not.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

No doubt, nobody could name lacrosse player other than Jim Brown. But 35 years from now I bet a somewhat common question will be "daddy what is baseball?". The answer will be: "it's a niche sport that is still pretty big Japan".

Baseball is awful. People are turning away from it in droves. Good riddance.

Zoo, could you please explain to me the contract that the Reds gave Votto this past offseason?

I personally happen to enjoy both sports. I don't however see lacrosse ever being anything significance beyond a major college level.

 

[FrostyNuggets]

Isnt the Body By Jake guy commissioner of Major League Lacrosse?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

"A fully-funded Division I men's lacrosse team has a maximum number of 12.6 scholarships to hand out. On the women's side, the max is 12."

We just need to find 12-13 more scholarships to add for the females in some sport and we're good to go. UConn lacrosse can play in stadiums around the state, especially Harbour Yard in Bridgeport.

There's a bit more to it than just the scholarships. For the additional men's scholarships offered we would need to add a similar number of women's scholarships (easiest part of the equation). Additionally, for every increase in non scholarship male athletes (I imagine ~ 20 in lacrosse) there must be an equal increase (total participation must be in line, not merely scholarship athletes) in women athletes (which will likely require a good number of partial scholarships as incentive along with a large increase in overall scouting/recruiting budgets in order to identify candidates willing to participate).

I absolutely want men's lacrosse added and I've posted many times over the past decade (on prior boneyards) about how this can be part of a comprehensive plan to better establish UConn's presence (to increase interest in the academic institution as well as increase the fan base for revenue sports) in affluent suburban NYC regions (western LI, Westchester and Fairfield counties), all of which can easily improve the marketability of the university and its athletic programs.

I see no reason why we cannot become a major player (equivalent to the status our men's soccer program has) within a half dozen years in men's lacrosse and we can also easily become the most significant athletic presence in all of metropolitan NYC in the process.

 

[ZooCougar]

Zoo, could you please explain to me the contract that the Reds gave Votto this past offseason?

I personally happen to enjoy both sports. I don't however see lacrosse ever being anything significance beyond a major college level.

Zoo, could you please explain to me the contract that the Reds gave Votto this past offseason?

I personally happen to enjoy both sports. I don't however see lacrosse ever being anything significance beyond a major college level.

I have no idea what the heck you are talking about. No doubt, there are a few baseball enclaves out there willing to spend money, but this sport is dying a long slow death.

Also one of you baseball wackjobs said that baseball isn't a derivative.


That is also total BS. Baseball is based on a British schoolgirls game called rounders.

If anything, basketball and hockey are derivatives of lacrosse, since it predates both of those sports by centuries.

In fact, basketball and lax are the only true North American sports in origin. Even football traces it's origins to soccer.

 

[babysheep]

Give me a break - hogwash It's not even an Olympic sport.

So what about football

?

Have you tried hitting a 95 mile an hour fastball? Or a 88 mile an hour slider that moves 4 inches 5 feet from the plate? My guess is if I threw you in a cage where a machine was throwing a straight 83 mile an hour fastball, you'd miss 10 out of 10. It's widely known that the hardest thing to do in all of sports is to hit a small ball traveling fast on multiple planes with a rounded bat. Are baseball players the best "athletes" in the world? No - it's more of a skill sport, a hand eye coordination sport. But there are still some great athletes in that sport and it's a sport distinct from any other. There is an art to it and it has an established historical value to it. It's not for everyone? I played it professionally, but have actually moved away from it as far as a sport of choice from a fan perspective. But I respect it, understand it's brand and where it sits in the American marketplace/history.

Lacrosse - not distinct. It overlaps other sports. Has no recognized history in today's passive fan base and fighting for recognition in a saturated sports market. It's going no where other than a regional makeshift sport. Just like so many of us can't get into watching women's hoops, nor can a lot of us get into watching second a second tier sport. We all want to watch sports where the best athletes or most skilled humans are.

Seriously dude the tone of this post and your previous posts screams "I got beat up by lacrosse players in high school and I can't get over it". You really seem to have some kind of emotional aversion to the sport.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Baseball takes skill, so does gardening and automotive maintenance. And I don't want to watch any of the three.

Lacrosse has no skill. Too funny, I guess any bum on the street could play football well too.

Yeah, hitting a 90+ mph fastball takes no skill. How about hitting a 90 mph pitch that moves from side to side? That doesn't take skill?

It's funny that you say that baseball will be a niche sport in 30 years. If lacrosse will become so popular, how come nobody goes to the games? There isn't even a foundation of a fanbase. Nobody goes at all. Baseball routinely gets 40,000+ to go to regular season games all throughout the country.

Nobody supports lacrosse.

 

[ZooCougar]

Baseball is sooooooo popular in many American cities that the MLS teams in those cities have literary them. FACT.

I never said that lacrosse will overtake our sedentary national "pastime". What will happen is that many other sports will continue to chip away at it until the the only people who still care about this "sport" 'are a few Dominicans and a few guys from that town in Iowa where they filled "field of dreams".

Once the old geezers that actually still love this game die off, there won't be much of fervent base left around. Hello niche-dom.

Yeah, hitting a 90+ mph fastball takes no skill. How about hitting a 90 mph pitch that moves from side to side? That doesn't take skill?

It's funny that you say that baseball will be a niche sport in 30 years. If lacrosse will become so popular, how come nobody goes to the games? There isn't even a foundation of a fanbase. Nobody goes at all. Baseball routinely gets 40,000+ to go to regular season games all throughout the country.

Nobody supports lacrosse.

 

[ZooCougar]

"Bum" is your word here. But UConn's Donald Thomas went from not playing football in high school to a starting position in the NFL in 5 years. Antonio Gates never played football in college and became an all-time great almost overnight from.

So by Waquoit/Waylon fallacy based logic, football, like lacrosse also sucks because these sports place a higher premium on elite level athleticism. Fat guys hitting fastballs is better. Got it.

 

[ZooCougar]

Baseball is so popular that it was jettisoned from Olympics. It was an Olympic sport. The four guys in the Netherlands who weren't athletic enough to ride a bike or play soccer were pretty bummed about that.

So what about football
Seriously dude the tone of this post and your previous posts screams "I got beat up by lacrosse players in high school and I can't get over it". You really seem to have some kind of emotional aversion to the sport.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Baseball is sooooooo popular in many American cities that the MLS teams in those cities have literary them. FACT.

I never said that lacrosse will overtake our sedentary national "pastime". What will happen is that many other sports will continue to chip away at it until the the only people who still care about this "sport" 'are a few Dominicans and a few guys from that town in Iowa where they filled "field of dreams".

Once the old geezers that actually still love this game die off, there won't be much of fervent base left around. Hello niche-dom.

Nice diversion from my post. Baseball requires a ton of skill to play. Michael Jordan, arguably the best athlete in the world, couldn't hack it in baseball.

Deion Sanders is arguably the greatest defensive back in NFL history, and he was just average in the MLB. Same with Bo Jackson. He had a career OBP of .309.

Baseball attendance has gone up this year, and is up compared to where it was ten years ago.

You have spoken out of your ass this whole thread, and have yet to make any post based on any factual data. Everything you post is centered around your inane opinions.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

Can't get into this sport at all - kids like it because it has tons of fun expensive gear. It's a redundant sport. We already have an age old sport where your run up and down a grass/turf field and put balls in goals(soccer). We already have a sport where you put a small ball in small goals with sticks(hockey). It feels like a sport your gym teacher concocted and would have you play. It translates terribly, like hockey, to TV. A bit of a yuppy sport for rich kids with lot's of gear. Will never, ever gain any major momentum in the sports world if you ask me. We have enough major sports covering all seasons. What we see now is likely the ceiling - regional sport.

For what it's worth there was a recent article (don't remember where, it was just an interesting tidbit. might have been the Yahoo front page) noting that Lax is the fastest growing youth sport in the U.S.

 

[ZooCougar]

I didn't divert. Your reading comprehension is just terrible. I agree that baseball takes skill, but that doesn't make it worthy viewing. Gardening takes skill, croquet takes skill, even curling takes skill. It does not mean it's cool.

It doesn't matter if attendance is up. And I do not believe that one bit. Last season MLS was outdrawing our boring national pastime in certain cities. People would rather watch bad pro soccer than go waste their lives watching nine excruciating innings of the most boring sport not named cricket.

Nice diversion from my post. Baseball requires a ton of skill to play. Michael Jordan, arguably the best athlete in the world, couldn't hack it in baseball.

Deion Sanders is arguably the greatest defensive back in NFL history, and he was just average in the MLB. Same with Bo Jackson. He had a career OBP of .309.

Baseball attendance has gone up this year, and is up compared to where it was ten years ago.

You have spoken out of your ass this whole thread, and have yet to make any post based on any factual data. Everything you post is centered around your inane opinions.

 

[babysheep]

For what it's worth there was a recent article (don't remember where, it was just an interesting tidbit. might have been the Yahoo front page) noting that Lax is the fastest growing youth sport in the U.S.

Because it's an extremely rewarding sport to play. You have to have the speed, agility and endurance of a soccer player with some serious physicality. And even as physical a sport as it is, it's a true finesse sport with most of the important stuff going on off the ball, and maybe that's why a lot of people don't like to watch it; it takes some kind of actual understanding of the flow of the sport to enjoy as a spectator, unlike sports like football and you can just go get drunk and be all "DERP WOW LOOK HOW HARD THAT ONE GUY HIT THAT OTHER GUY" and be entertained.

 

[johnhuskies95]

I didn't divert. Your reading comprehension is just terrible. I agree that baseball takes skill, but that doesn't make it worthy viewing. Gardening takes skill, croquet takes skill, even curling takes skill. It does not mean it's cool.

It doesn't matter if attendance is up. And I do not believe that one bit. Last season MLS was outdrawing our boring national pastime in certain cities. People would rather watch bad pro soccer than go waste their lives watching nine excruciating innings of the most boring sport not named cricket.

No, my point is that baseball obviously takes more skill than those things. Obviously. Nobody with half a brain would argue that cradling a stick with a mesh head and a ball inside it requires more skill than hitting a baseball going 95 mph with just a wooden stick.

You're talking about something that's not "cool"? What does that even mean? According to whom? You?

And then you're just outright denying proven facts. Baseball's attendance numbers are higher this year than last year and the numbers now are higher than they were 10 years ago. That is a fact.

Meanwhile, you are speaking out of your ass. Last year, an MLS team outdrew the MLB team in one city. One city. That is singular, not plural.

The MLB outdrew the MLS by 40%.

This entire thread you have not provided one thing that proves that baseball is on the decline. Not one thing.

 

[RuffRuff]

So what about football
Seriously dude the tone of this post and your previous posts screams "I got beat up by lacrosse players in high school and I can't get over it". You really seem to have some kind of emotional aversion to the sport.

So what about football
Seriously dude the tone of this post and your previous posts screams "I got beat up by lacrosse players in high school and I can't get over it". You really seem to have some kind of emotional aversion to the sport.

C'mon man, do you really think the sport of football and everything that goes into it can be played in the Olympics? The conditioning, the game planning. Football is an intense, highly physical sport that no one would sign up for on the Olympic level. We have a hard enough time fielding the best US NBA players to play in the Olympics with claim of injury due to hurt fingernails. And bottom line, the Super Bowl has 1000 time more meaning than the Olympics would have in it's given sport. Now Lacrosse on the other hand has no major venue and would jump at the chance.

I can see you and this Zoocougar cat clearly play/have something invested in Lacrosse, hence the quick reflex defensiveness with zero thought put into it. I have nothing personal at all against Lacrosse, absolutely zero - only observing it as a sport as a passive fan. I just find it lame - it's my opinion. I look at it as a corny yuppy sport full of Beeber haircuts flicking a ball around in a makeshift sport. I have nothing against others that enjoy it, all the power to them.

Zoocougar - take a look at the MLB Financials and come back to me and let me know if it's a dying sport. Baseball is a global sport, one of the things that makes it interesting - lacrosse has momentum in a tiny region locally.

 

[UofCT]

C'mon man, do you really think the sport of football and everything that goes into it can be played in the Olympics? The conditioning, the game planning. Football is an intense, highly physical sport that no one would sign up for on the Olympic level. We have a hard enough time fielding the best US NBA players to play in the Olympics with claim of injury due to hurt fingernails. And bottom line, the Super Bowl has 1000 time more meaning than the Olympics would have in it's given sport. Now Lacrosse on the other hand has no major venue and would jump at the chance.

I can see you and this Zoocougar cat clearly play/have something invested in Lacrosse, hence the quick reflex defensiveness with zero thought put into it. I have nothing personal at all against Lacrosse, absolutely zero - only observing it as a sport as a passive fan. I just find it lame - it's my opinion. I look at it as a corny yuppy sport full of Beeber haircuts flicking a ball around in a makeshift sport. I have nothing against others that enjoy it, all the power to them.

Zoocougar - take a look at the MLB Financials and come back to me and let me know if it's a dying sport. Baseball is a global sport, one of the things that makes it interesting - lacrosse has momentum in a tiny region locally.

LAX BROS

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I have no idea what the heck you are talking about. No doubt, there are a few baseball enclaves out there willing to spend money, but this sport is dying a long slow death.

Also one of you baseball wackjobs said that baseball isn't a derivative.


That is also total BS. Baseball is based on a British schoolgirls game called rounders.

If anything, basketball and hockey are derivatives of lacrosse, since it predates both of those sports by centuries.

In fact, basketball and lax are the only true North American sports in origin. Even football traces it's origins to soccer.

What I am talking about is that somehow, this dying sport is able to pay considerably more to its stars (and even its merely good) than any other North American professional sport, even if the team doing the paying is in a minor market. I apologize if this went over your head and I will try to be more descriptive in the future as not to confuse you.

As far as baseball wackjobs who don't believe the sport is derivative, I am not one of those. I realize that all current sports are derivative. At least 1,300 years ago a game called crook (called koff by Viking invaders of England, where the name golf came from) was played by using a shepard's crook (also called a hook by some, which led to the names cricket, croquette, hockey and even lacrosse) for sports that were derived from whacking an object on the ground (usually a grass field) with the crook.

Various forms of this action (some 800 + years younger than kicking an object) evolved into many of the above mentioned sports along with polo and (although highly debatable) quite possibly tennis and badminton. The sports that you are claiming to be true of north american origin are an adaptation (per the man who developed, or as some had stated, invented it) of association football and the application of a Native American ritual (which was a bonding exercise between tribes that had no objective or rule other than tossing something back and forth for what could total a few days. It's current name came from the French name for the game of field hockey (as that is what it looked like to the first Europeans who witnessed the activity), which meant the crook from the above mentioned field game played many centuries earlier and the current sport is merely applying the Native American means of tossing the object back and forth to an existing European game.

If you want to believe that somehow, within any reasonable time frame there will be a prosperous professional lacrosse league (at something close to the current major sports), I have some reasonable housing opportunities that I would like to find some investors for and you appear to be an ideal candidate. If you also want to believe that Major League Baseball will not be around in any reasonable (or even unreasonable) time frame, hell, you could be the guy willing to buy the entire portfolio of properties.

 

[8893]

Insufficient reply. Why is it false? I'm giving reasons for my opinions, all I'm getting back is stuff like false, wrong, you don't know the sport. Inform me, where's the skill? Running back and forth holding a ball in a basket while everyone else watches doesn't seem that hard to do. There's the basic throwing and catching that has a degree of skill, but nothing that approaches hitting a baseball or dribbling a soccer ball. I think the lack of skill needed is part of it's appeal for new players.

I guess I must have missed the part where you gave your reasons. As far as I can tell, you cited a low skill factor before, and a lack of skill here. But you also concede that it has a "degree of skill." Wow. Great reasons. And you're the one criticizing those who like Susan Herbst because you say she hasn't done anything? It's clear you are a miserable, small , but I've had some wine with dinner and I'll be foolish enough to respond further.

Hey, I love a lot of sports. I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football, and then rugby later. I just don't see where people like you who are clearly clueless about all of them get off on judging any of them. Yes, professional baseball requires the highest degree of the most skills. I guess I missed the part where that was the comparison. We're talking about collegiate sports here, or so I thought.

And then there's the guys like Ruff Ruff who "played a sport at a higher level" who appear to be struggling to relive their glory days. Whatever you all need to feel comfortable in your tiny place in life, by all means do it.

I can still play all "my" sports pretty well. I can shoot a few baskets, throw a nice spiral for a few dozen yards, kick the hell out of the ball, and hit in the 80s in a batting cage. I've been trying lacrosse now because my girls are playing it, and all I am saying is that it takes a fair amount of skill too. It is different, and that's why you and the others here are criticizing it. I'd love to see you cradle, catch and throw the ball with precision. Better yet, I'd love to see you try to stop it coming at you in goal, as my daughter who is a goalie has to do. There's a reason that most kids want nothing to do with being LAX goalie: it's really freaking hard, it hurts a lot when you get hit by the ball, and no matter how good you are, you are going to get scored on, so you need to be resilient. In case you didn't know, there is not nearly the padding that a hockey goalie has.

This Beiber/yuppie stuff is just pure bullsh!t drawn from either clinical insecurity or a laughably small sample size. Try the sport yourself. See how well you do. At the highest level, all sports require a very high degree of skill. Ok, maybe not luge. But pretty much all others. The rest of this discussion is more telling for how obviously some guys like you have never really experienced any sport, and some like Ruff Ruff can't get over the fact that they ceased being relevant once their glory days were over a long time ago.

 

[MattMang23]

I have no idea what the heck you are talking about. No doubt, there are a few baseball enclaves out there willing to spend money, but this sport is dying a long slow death.

Also one of you baseball wackjobs said that baseball isn't a derivative.


That is also total BS. Baseball is based on a British schoolgirls game called rounders.

If anything, basketball and hockey are derivatives of lacrosse, since it predates both of those sports by centuries.

In fact, basketball and lax are the only true North American sports in origin. Even football traces it's origins to soccer.

If hockey derives from lacrosse, and lacrosse was originated in North America, would that, by your own definition, not make hockey a sport that also traces its origins to North America? Because it does.

Ice hockey has developed from mixing stick-and-ball games popular amongst Canadian First Nations, and the idea of British soldiers on outpost in Canada deciding to adapt that game to a natural winter condition in Canada, ice.

 

[ZooCougar]

Again, you just wrote a bunch of crap, unnecessarily I might add.

Show me where I said where there would be some prosperous pro lacrosse league. The most prestigious level of the sport will probably always be the collegiat level.


I do baseball's day is over. Its an inferior sport that is slow, sedentary and doesnt demand our kids maintain a high level of fitness. It will become another insignificant niche sport that farmers play. It doesn't translate well in he modern era. There are better sports for young people to play and they are voting as we speak. With each passing year, more and more kids are choosing other sports. Pretty soon, a record number of young people won't even know the rules. So long to baseball as a major sport. Look at the NHL, because if baseball can sustain even the same level that NHL has been scraping together, then it will be lucky. Count on it.

What I am talking about is that somehow, this dying sport is able to pay considerably more to its stars (and even its merely good) than any other North American professional sport, even if the team doing the paying is in a minor market. I apologize if this went over your head and I will try to be more descriptive in the future as not to confuse you.

As far as baseball wackjobs who don't believe the sport is derivative, I am not one of those. I realize that all current sports are derivative. At least 1,300 years ago a game called crook (called koff by Viking invaders of England, where the name golf came from) was played by using a shepard's crook (also called a hook by some, which led to the names cricket, croquette, hockey and even lacrosse) for sports that were derived from whacking an object on the ground (usually a grass field) with the crook.

Various forms of this action (some 800 + years younger than kicking an object) evolved into many of the above mentioned sports along with polo and (although highly debatable) quite possibly tennis and badminton. The sports that you are claiming to be true of north american origin are an adaptation (per the man who developed, or as some had stated, invented it) of association football and the application of a Native American ritual (which was a bonding exercise between tribes that had no objective or rule other than tossing something back and forth for what could total a few days. It's current name came from the French name for the game of field hockey (as that is what it looked like to the first Europeans who witnessed the activity), which meant the crook from the above mentioned field game played many centuries earlier and the current sport is merely applying the Native American means of tossing the object back and forth to an existing European game.

If you want to believe that somehow, within any reasonable time frame there will be a prosperous professional lacrosse league (at something close to the current major sports), I have some reasonable housing opportunities that I would like to find some investors for and you appear to be an ideal candidate. If you also want to believe that Major League Baseball will not be around in any reasonable (or even unreasonable) time frame, hell, you could be the guy willing to buy the entire portfolio of properties.

 

[husky8273]

Which would draw more fans - UConn vs. Notre Dame in lax at the Rent or UConn vs. ND in baseball in New Britain or Norwich?

 

[8893]

and hit in the 80s in a batting cage.

Ok, that must have been the wine talking. I can hit in a batting cage. 80s, probably not.

 

[RuffRuff]

I guess I must have missed the part where you gave your reasons. As far as I can tell, you cited a low skill factor before, and a lack of skill here. But you also concede that it has a "degree of skill." Wow. Great reasons. And you're the one criticizing those who like Susan Herbst because you say she hasn't done anything? It's clear you are a miserable, small Fecundity, but I've had some wine with dinner and I'll be foolish enough to respond further.

Hey, I love a lot of sports. I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football, and then rugby later. I just don't see where people like you who are clearly clueless about all of them get off on judging any of them. Yes, professional baseball requires the highest degree of the most skills. I guess I missed the part where that was the comparison. We're talking about collegiate sports here, or so I thought.

And then there's the guys like Ruff Ruff who "played a sport at a higher level" who appear to be struggling to relive their glory days. Whatever you all need to feel comfortable in your tiny place in life, by all means do it.

I can still play all "my" sports pretty well. I can shoot a few baskets, throw a nice spiral for a few dozen yards, kick the hell out of the ball, and hit in the 80s in a batting cage. I've been trying lacrosse now because my girls are playing it, and all I am saying is that it takes a fair amount of skill too. It is different, and that's why you and the others here are criticizing it. I'd love to see you cradle, catch and throw the ball with precision. Better yet, I'd love to see you try to stop it coming at you in goal, as my daughter who is a goalie has to do. There's a reason that most kids want nothing to do with being LAX goalie: it's really freaking hard, it hurts a lot when you get hit by the ball, and no matter how good you are, you are going to get scored on, so you need to be resilient. In case you didn't know, there is not nearly the padding that a hockey goalie has.

This Beiber/yuppie stuff is just pure bullsh!t drawn from either clinical insecurity or a laughably small sample size. Try the sport yourself. See how well you do. At the highest level, all sports require a very high degree of skill. Ok, maybe not luge. But pretty much all others. The rest of this discussion is more telling for how obviously some guys like you have never really experienced any sport, and some like Ruff Ruff can't get over the fact that they ceased being relevant once their glory days were over a long time ago.

I'm not downplaying the skill level needed for Lacrosse. I'm not downplaying those who do enjoy it nor am I downplaying it's current rise in popularity - it's a growing sport, no doubt. It's has a specific market. I'm downplaying the ceiling on how marketable it can be beyond what it is.

I am absolutely not replaying the glory days - guy, I know you like forums for positioning your big words while the adrenaline is flowing, but get over yourself. I'm expressing my personal lack of interest in a sport - how is that reliving glory days? It's an opinion. I'm a fanatic for a sport I never played for nothing but the pure appreciation of what it's all about - football. So not at all, major fail - just a reference to the who started turning this into a tit for tat childish back and forth. If anything, I am pretty vocal about why baseball is boring - that's another argument. It's not at the top of my list as favorite sports to be a fan of and that's the sport that I played professionally - it has it's warts as far as dynamic/structure(no salary cap, too long a season, too long a game). So not to toot my own horn, but I'm probably coming from about as unbiased a perspective on this as one could. Baseball has a romanticized place in US history that will never die. It also has fantasy baseball. I always say that baseball is built for the type of fan that loves history/stats. I have zero personal against Lacrosse, whereas I can tell a lot in this thread take it personal that someone doesn't appreciate the sport. Any sport has a stigma, a brand a purpose. I just don't buy Lacrosse beyond what it is today - a regional sport, for reasons already stated. I totally get why it's become popular around these parts - it's a continuous flow sport which aspires well to the newly evolving ADD mind. I knew someone would throw out the ridiculous point of it being played 200 years ago by Indians. The issue with Lacrosse is that it hasn't materialized through the growth phase of sports in the US/Global history, industrialization/globalization. It's just coming into it's own now, likely too late to make any serious moves. It doesn't have a recognized history, brand, sports figures other than Jim Brown's second sport and I just think it overlaps other sports in it's basis. Maybe if my kid grows up loving it I will change my mind and get all insecure about it when someone calls it out like everyone else/you, but right now as an open minded passive sports fan, can't get into it in the slightest. It's particularly horrible on TV.

 

[8893]

Not sure which "big words" got your attention Ruff, but I'll try to keep it simple:

I'm not debating marketability as a spectator sport, television appeal or anything else like that. I'm also not the one claiming that baseball is going anywhere. I actually love to watch baseball, probably more than any other sport besides men's college basketball. I also enjoy watching NFL football and NBA playoff basketball. None of this has anything to do with my issue with the position taken about lacrosse by some here.

You say you don't have anything personal against lacrosse, but you repeatedly refer to it as "artificial" and "a corny yuppy sport full of Beeber haircuts flicking a ball around in a makeshift sport." Apparently your nephews have made quite an impression on you. All I am saying is that your sample size appears to be pretty small and you might want to watch it at some other level. If you can't see the stereotype in your statements I don't know what to tell you, except that they are not accurate based on what I have seen.

Football, soccer, basketball, rugby and hockey, among others, are all just as "makeshift" and "artificial" as lacrosse from my perspective. And all are pretty much, at their most basic level, some form of "glorified keep-away," i.e., keeping possession of the ball (or puck) and scoring with it are the goals of the game. They are all derivative of the exact same concept. I just don't see how someone could brand one of them "makeshift" or "artificial" any more than the others.

You say you are not downplaying the skill level, I'll take you at your word. I guess that's Whyquit's angle.

 

[caw]

Having never played lacrosse, but I find college lacrosse more entertaining than college baseball, college soccer or college hockey. JMO, but I would put it third of college sports I would watch on TV. Full disclosure; soccer is my favorite TV sport (and when in Europe, favorite spectator). Obviously, college basketball and college football would be #1 and #2 for college sports.

 

[specialisthusky]

wow this thread took off. I'm from South Jersey. Lacrosse came to my highschool my freshman year. It absolutely took off and by my senior year the team competed for a state championship and sent kids to play at places like Providence and Ohio State (i have no idea if they are good lax schools or not). The overwhelming majority of these players were your stereotypical lax bros.

Baseball was 100x more popular than lacrosse while i was in high school, but i have returned home and discovered a lax club team now exists that is taking kids away from the little league fields. Baseball is now about 50x more popuar so it is definitly gaining some momentum.

In terms of potential popularity. Lax tops out at NHL level IMO. No way does it ever amass to the money making machine the MLB is. I've been to a few MLL games (Philadelphia Wings). It was boring to be honest but there were some great fights, which is exactly what people who don't play/understand hockey say about the NHL.

 

[Waquoit]

I've been to a few MLL games (Philadelphia Wings). It was boring to be honest ...

Best Lacrosse players in the world. Thank you for your honesty.

Whirley Ball is kind of fun to play and has the same skill level as lacrosse. Who wants to watch that?

And no one talks about the many folks who gave up the game because it sh!ts. They're known as Ex-LAX.