America's Cup

[zebo]

So this series has ended in a victory for the USA, a crew with an Australian skipper, a British tactician, Sir Ben, brought in when they were being thrashed by NZ and the remainder a mostly non US crew!

Still, no doubt it will be an Stars and Stripes Fest in the US.

[Mass_Hysteria]

still an awesome comeback from 8-1 down to win 9-8!!

[zebo]

Of course it is a remarkable result, but not a truly American victory.

[ChillDoubt]

What do you expect from a country that has a World Series for.....baseball teams based solely in the US!!

[ToraToraTora]

The World series is named after the newspaper "The World" - it's first sponsor, not intended to mean the actual world.

[boysinblue68]

But they still call the winners of the World Series, World Champions!

[jno]

I think both sides had crew who were mostly from NZ. The sport's gone the same way as rugby, hasn't it?

I must say I can't quite see the point of naming the teams after countries when they're essentially owned by corporations and by crewed by anyone from anywhere.

[Bazile]

The United States continued to be the zenith of professional baseball some decades into the 20th Century. The first Japanese professional baseball efforts began in 1920. The current Japanese leagues date from the late 1940s. Various Latin American leagues also formed around that time.

By the 1990s, baseball was played at a highly skilled level in many countries, resulting in a strong international flavor to the Series, as many of the best players from the Pacific Rim, Latin America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere now play on Major League rosters. The notable exception is Cuban nationals, due to the political situation between the USA and Cuba (despite that barrier, over the years a number of Cuba's finest ballplayers have defected to the United States to play in the American professional leagues). Players from the Japanese Leagues also have a more difficult time coming to the Major Leagues because they must first play 10 years in Japan before becoming free agents. Reaching the high-income Major Leagues tends to be the goal of many of the best players around the world.

Early in 2006, Major League Baseball conducted the inaugural World Baseball Classic, to establish a "true" world's championship in the way the term is normally used for other international sports. Teams of professional players from 16 nations participated, and Japan won the first World Baseball Classic championship. Olympic baseball was instituted as a medal sport in 1992, but in 2005 the International Olympic Committee voted to eliminate baseball, and it will be off the Olympic program in 2012.

The World Series itself retains a US-oriented atmosphere. The title of the event is often presented on television as merely a "brand name" in the same sense as the "Super Bowl", and thus the term "World Series Championship" is sometimes used. However, the origin of the term lives on, as with these words of Frank Thomas in the Chicago White Sox victory celebration in 2005: "We're world's champions, baby!" At the close of the 2006 Series, Commissioner Bud Selig pronounced the St. Louis Cardinals "champions of the world". Likewise, the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine for November 6, 2006, features Series MVP David Eckstein and is subtitled "World Champions".

A recent myth has arisen that the "World" in "World Series" came about because the New York World newspaper sponsored it. There is no evidence at all supporting that hypothesis.[4]The annual publication called the World Almanac was originally published by the New York World. Its ambiguous title and U.S.-centric content may have inspired the World Series myth, either facetiously or naively.

Humorist Ring Lardner, when writing columns about ongoing World Series in the 1910s (including the infamous 1919 Series) mocked the pomp surrounding the games he covered (as well as his own persona) by calling the event the "World's Serious".

source wikipedia




ToraToraTora - Not according to this -

//A recent myth has arisen that the "World" in "World Series" came about because the New York World newspaper sponsored it. There is no evidence at all supporting that hypothesis.[4]The annual publication called the World Almanac was originally published by the New York World. Its ambiguous title and U.S.-centric content may have inspired the World Series myth, either facetiously or naively. //

[humbersloop]

it's always been a race between yacht clubs, not national teams. In this case, the Golden Gate Yacht Club and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, so you can put any racing crew out you like as long as they're members

And it's always been about high performance racing funded by the very wealthy, in this case Larry Ellison

[jno]

true, Team Humbersloop, it's the "Team USA" and "Team NZ" I was querying.

Strangely enough nobody seemed to be paying much attention in this country until it suddenly became Team Ainslie.

[ToraToraTora]

fair enough bazile, that was what I'd often heard but there is a lot of urban mythery out there.

[humbersloop]

lol jno, he's an amazing racer, this was an inspired and 'never give up, never give in' result

if he gets the backing, watch out for him in the next America's series with JP Morgan BAR

[Aprilis]

My cousin in NZ saw this on AB's facebook page as I'd made a comment on there. She followed the link and took a look at this thread. She's not an AB member and responded on fb. I've copied her response so you lovely people get to see it. Here it is...

Hi guys I read your the comments in the link above and would like to just clear one point made by jno. Team NZ was funded primarily by the public of NZ with the help of some major sponsors..Oracle were funded by Larry Ellison.

By the way, my response to this on fb was that I thought it was a farce.

[jno]

thanks, Aprilis, but my guess is Emirates put in a bob or two.

[dr b]

This may have been given a paragraph on the back page of the sports section of my local newspaper today, but I think the general American sporting public is utterly indifferent as to whether Ellison's boat won, the NZ boat won, or if the race never occurred at all. There are baseball games to be played, after all!

[Baldric]

Be fair guys, winning the America's Cup would be a walkover
for a Country that won WW2 single handed!

[Aprilis]

No probs jno. Just thought it was a shame that my cousin posted a response on fb that was unlikely to be seen.
I personally thought it should not have been allowed to make major modifications to one's vessel once the competition had started...and you're losing. Tantamount to cheating in my opinion. Not that I claim to know much about the Americas Cup, it's the first time I've ever paid any attention to it and that was thanks to my cousin.