Making A Pitch For Cricket

2 A running cricket batter cannot be obstructed or touched in any way; tagging is strictly confined to hitting the base stumps with the ball. On the other hand, cricket pitchers can legitimately aim at the batter's body—and pistol the hell out of him.

3 At least one London pub owner was paying graft for the ball park beer concession as early as 1668.

4 Recently and very successfully adopted by our major leagues—so successfully indeed that the standard three-day match may well disappear soon.

5 Later Lord Constantine, the first black man ever to sit in our House of Lords, in recognition of his brave and lifelong fight off the cricket field for racial justice. He was a trained lawyer, but in many other respects—not least in his dazzling speed and athleticism—he recalls baseball's immortal Jackie Robinson.

6 But pro baseball fielders, let me add in passing, are much more skilled than their cricket analogues—especially in throwing.

7 Originally underarm, the delivery was allowed to be made from shoulder level in 1835 and then as high as one liked in 1864—against the same kind of angry protest from the batters as base-bail pitchers were to hear in their sport a decade later.

8 The most famous fielding casualty in the game's history was Frederick, Prince of Wales. A cricket fanatic, he died in 1751 as a result of taking a hard hit in the side.

9 The first cricket bowler to have both curves was an American—the Philadelphian J. B. King, who could have made any international team of his era. The Gentlemen of Philadelphia, incidentally, played major league cricket here as late as 1908.

10 "Wicket" is used not only to describe the base sticks but also the turf between them. The commonest word for this turf, however, is the pitch—one of many linguistic traps for the American. With us a "fast pitch" means a turf giving a fast bounce, not a fastball.