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Would Sherlock Holmes attend a sports event as a fan?


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Hey everyone :) I am design student at Goldsmiths. We have been given Sherlock Holmes as a character for a brief. We had make a carbon copy of objects we were given. The second part of the brief is to enact a character as a 'fan' . it is my belief he wouldn't be a fan and wouldn't turn up to a game of baseball unless it was for a case. Is it okay to ask your options on the matter? https://bad-baseball.herokuapp.com

 

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Hi Antoine and welcome to the forum! :wave: As for your question, I'd honestly be surprised if baseball was even played in England during Sherlock Holmes's times (cricket, on the other hand ...). Regardless, I doubt he'd be a fan - however, he was known for his disguises, and observing a target for a case during a baseball game might have occurred to him.

Can one of our British board members give an estimation of how popular baseball is there nowadays, maybe? Here in Austria, if it helps any, well let me put it like that, I was once at the finals of the Austrian softball league - which took place in a field outside of a sports complex, and besides the teams there were maybe a dozen spectators (and most for similar reasons to mine - I'd driven the umpire there since his car had broken down).

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4 hours ago, AntoineGenevier said:

Hey everyone :) I am design student at Goldsmiths. We have been given Sherlock Holmes as a character for a brief. We had make a carbon copy of objects we were given. The second part of the brief is to enact a character as a 'fan' . it is my belief he wouldn't be a fan and wouldn't turn up to a game of baseball unless it was for a case. Is it okay to ask your options on the matter? https://bad-baseball.herokuapp.com

 

Welcome, Antoine!  I suspect you're right about Sherlock.  In addition to "for a case," though, he might study baseball to increase his general knowledge -- possibly investigating the mechanics involved, or looking for insights into the American psyche.

If you are in touch with the people who put up that website, by the way, you might point out that baseball has games, not matches.

 

3 hours ago, Caya said:

I was once at the finals of the Austrian softball league - which took place in a field outside of a sports complex, and besides the teams there were maybe a dozen spectators (and most for similar reasons to mine - I'd driven the umpire there since his car had broken down).

Softball is not baseball.  They are played by similar rules, using similar equipment, and (to confuse things even further) softball is often casually referred to as "baseball."  But (at least in the US) softball is a more casual sport (even I have played it!), whereas baseball is a more serious, organized sport played at levels up to and including the Major Leagues.  So it sounds like baseball is not played at all in Austria.

 

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A bit late to the party, but I agree ... irregardless of the sport, I can't imagine Sherlock showing up as a "fan." For research or for a case, yes, but for enjoyment? Not so much.

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6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

regardless of the sport, I can't imagine Sherlock showing up as a "fan." For research or for a case, yes, but for enjoyment? Not so much.

Yup, I can imagine him sitting there in the stands (assuming that he somehow got that far), saying "But what's the point?"

 

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12 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Yup, I can imagine him sitting there in the stands (assuming that he somehow got that far), saying "But what's the point?"

 

Sort of like me, actually. :P 

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  • 2 years later...

Interesting discussion! The idea of combining detective and sports is not a bad one. I even saw in my imagination Sherlock Holmes as a fan in the stands. That would be a fun episode! I also envisioned our detective betting on sports. I think with his logic and intelligence, he would always win. Anyway, you can fantasize about anything. 

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14 minutes ago, Diana91 said:

... you can fantasize about anything. 

How true!  And that's what keeps fiction writers from running out of plots.

20 minutes ago, Diana91 said:

I also envisioned our detective betting on sports. I think with his logic and intelligence, he would always win.

I suspect he'd do fairly well, yes -- but I doubt he'd win 100% of the time.  There's simply too much random chance involved in sports -- which way a ball bounces, whether players get injured, whether the referee happens to notice an infraction of the rules, etc.

Anyhow, hello, Diana91, and welcome to Sherlock Forum!   :welcome:

 

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I’ve always thought Sherlock Holmes would be attracted by the mathematical precision of baseball.  A statistician’s dream.  He also has a fondness for the equine nation based on one of my favorite stories, Silver Blaze, so maybe he’d like the racetrack.

Getting this out of the archives; I had posted it on another discussion back in 2017.

From the  collection Sherlock Holmes in America comes a tale by Darryl Brock recounting an? early exploit of Sherlock Holmes in America, when a 21-year-old Holmes, having left university, met Mark Twain, titled as "My Silk Umbrella."

Hartford, Connecticut, May 1875:  On a fine spring day, Hartford's most famous citizen, Mr. Samuel Clemens, skives off from writing "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" to go the ball park to root for Hartford's hometown nine, 'The Dark Blues' in their highly-anticipated contest against the Boston Red Stockings in the newly-minted American pastime of 'base ball'.   He overhears a nasally aggrieved English voice complaining, "But it's a glorified game of rounders!  Why is the price so dear?!"

This would turn out to be Holmes, says Clemens.

What follows is a rollicking, often contentious transcontinental exchange of views on various topics, including the superiority of 'base ball' to cricket, or vice-versa, the criminal classes, and nothing less than the national character of two nations, at least.  Also, the nascent consulting detective takes on one of his smaller, unheralded, and first-ever cases when he solves the theft of the American humorist's prized silk umbrella, given to Clemens as a gift from some English admirers on a recent trip to London.  This match-up of two gigantic literary icons, one nearing his zenith and the other just on the rise is a humdinger of a tale, whether or not you actually believe that Sherlock Holmes visited Hartford, Connecticut when he was 21.  Mr. Brock  makes a very compelling case that he did.

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@Hikari -- Did you do anything different when you posted the above?  I use the Light theme, and see the text as much fainter (and a bit smaller) than in earlier posts on this thread (also fainter than in your earlier posts elsewhere).

Added:  ... but this post turned out perfectly normal.

P.S.:  In case anyone is interested in reading more of the thread that your lengthy quote came from, it's here.

 

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