It all started harmlessly enough. I mean, there I was, a common garden variety American baseball fan who suddenly, via the wonder that is the Internet, found herself interacting on a regular basis with all these Australians, New Zealanders, and English people. And, cultural differences notwithstanding, the talk was easy enough to follow, not to mention perfectly civilized, until....

....things turned to sport, at which point I would find myself fending off disparaging comments directed at "my" game, which was held by certain of these good folk to be some kind of childish and/or decadent descendent of their favorite (oops, sorry; "favourite") bat-and-ball sport. Of course these conversations were all rather lopsided, since my chat partners could claim some familiarity with America's national pastime by way of an allegedly similar playground version they have, "rounders" (as well as from the odd baseball clip shown on their TV sports programs), while their game was a complete mystery to me. "Baseball is to cricket as checkers is to chess," one person sniffed when I mentioned what I knew were superficial similarities between the two. Well, fine, then: I'd just have to learn something about cricket, so I'd have some ammunition-- er, background-- to bring to the discussions.

Now, there was more involved in my decision to look up cricket than just this spirit of playful antagonism. My interest had genuinely been piqued by these fun people who described their game in such glowing terms (one cyberfriend's eloquent riffs on the subject invariably concluded with his pronouncing cricket "the epitome of civilisation"). What I didn't count on, however, was getting hooked. For one thing, I could tell before I started that the project would be a challenge-- so much jargon, so many rules, so many nations involved. There was a good chance I'd prove unequal to it! For another, I guess I figured that even if I was able to make sense of it all, I was probably immune to out-and-out cricket addiction: after all, I'd had other chances to learn about it-- in the early 1980's, from a British office-mate who was a fan; and then, at least in theory, at any time during my two years living in the UK in the mid-80's-- and had managed to pass them up without even a wistful glance back.

This time was different, though. Something just clicked, and from that day in April 2000 when I received such a warm response upon wandering into The Cricketer magazine's online chat room to ask whether a complete novice were allowed to lurk and learn about the game, I was won over. Between that chat (which I still attend weekly) and the subsequent opportunities I've had to hear (via Web-casts over CricInfo) and even see (thanks to both a local league and the annual, almost local Philadelphia Cricket Festival) actual cricket matches, I have become quite a fan of the Noble Game. Oh, and I guess the dozens of cricket books I've bought (beginning with Rob Eastaway's very useful What is a Googly?) since August 2000 haven't hurt, either!

So how did my original pals react when I returned to our conversations armed with cricket knowledge but disarmed by my new-found love of the sport? Well, of course, they were full of congratulations... but I sensed that one or two might also be feeling a wee bit smug. Wouldn't you be?