Re: An American View of Cricket (longish)

Randy Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> In rec.sport.baseball Richard R. Hershberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > Yes, if the Devil Rays beat the Yankees in one game, in some
> > sense the Devil Rays are the stronger team for those three hours.
> 
> No, not stronger.  Better.  More efficient, if you like.
> 
> > And if the Yankees come back and pound the Devil Rays in the
> > second game of the double header, then the Yankees are the
> > stronger team for those three hours. 
> 
> And that's all you can say.
> 
> > This is, of course, not at all what everyone other than our
> > little buddy means by "stronger team", which is why he is talking
> > past everyone.
> 
> But any other definition of "better team" is meaningless.  You
> can put words together if you like but that doesn't mean the words
> amount to anything.

Piffle:  utterly pure piffle.  I can say that the 1927 Yankees were a
"better team" than the 1927 Red Sox in a perfectly meaningful way: 
the Yankees won more games.  Did the Yankees win the last game they
played against the Red Sox that year?  Heck if I know.  But that seems
to be the one and only datum you will allow as being meaningful in
comparing the two teams.
> 
> > Once you realize that what he is talking about is neither
> > relevent to the current discussion nor of interest in its own
> > right, interpreting his posts is much simpler.
> 
> The point is that any definition of "better team" that is not
> directly tied to the result of the last game is merely a prediction
> that may, or may not, pan out.

And the sun rises in the east:  No one is saying that the better team
wins every game.  Anyone who really thought otherwise would hardly pay
out his hard earned cash to see a pre-ordained game.
> 
> But clowns like you treat these predictions as concrete fact and
> you fill this ng with effluvium based on this faulty thinking.

More piffle.  It is perfectly meaningful to state that in any given
game the better team is more likely to win.

  But
> the effluvium is more important to you than the game itself so
> naturally you rebel when your nose is rubbed in it.

Rude as always, and
> 
> cordially, as always,

still a bald-faced liar.

Richard R. Hershberger