But the rest of the world does know of these stars.

You're just a pointy headed, pocket protected dweeb.

TYPE THAT IN TO YOUR WEB BROWSER YOU NERD! HA!

There are roughly 160 million people in Pakistan. Let's say 40% are under 18, giving us 64 million, so about 32 million boys. So let's round down and say that it Pakistan there are 30 million boys under the age of 18. I would bet good money that among those 30 million boys there is not even one that would trade a pile of yak-shit for a poster of Cal Ripken.

Our cute, little sidekicks. Robin to our Batman. Shorty to our Indy. Blair to our Bush. Always there when we need some irreverent and inconsequential banter.

Since you are unfamiliar with Cal, I will not get into why his work ethic is something that can probably transcend culture and geography. First we will school you on the simple things.

Baseball is played professionally throughout South America, Central America and Asia. But perhaps you were only counting white skinned peoples. Euros can be so ethnocentric. Baseball is extremely popular globally, and a very good percentage of big leaguers come from outside of the US. It is fair to say that the best players from around the world gather to play in the Major Leagues.

To say that Kobe Bryant was not globally popular before the rape allegations is as ludicrous as saying that one day England will be considered a world super power again. Kobe was a huge star in Asia before that, and he continues to be. Kobe and T-Mac (look it up, lad) jerseys actually outsell Yao Ming jerseys in China according to many published reports. To imply that NBA stars aren't recognized anywhere but the US is especially inane considering so many of them are from outside of the US.

The Super Bowl is carried in more countries than the World Cup.

I have a sneaking suspicion of why. At the last World Cup, a buddy invited me to come over and watch the championship. I said,"Why should I? I all ready know what is going to happen. It will be 0-0 and decided on penalty kicks."

Oops. It was 1-1, and decided on penalty kicks. That is like the FIBA Basektball World Championships  being decided on a lay-up drill.

The Talmud in Gittin discusses an apparent innovation of the great Hillel, about a century before the destruction of the Second Temple. The shmita year carries with it not only the obligation of having the ground of the Land of Israel rest but also the requirement of shmitat ksafim - allowing all personal loans and debts to be automatically canceled. The Torah is very explicit about this requirement stating that one should not hold back from lending money to the needy in the sixth year in fear that it will not be repaid before the shmita year, when the debt will automatically be canceled.

Hillel, aware that in his time lenders were in fact withholding loans as the shmita year approached, constructed a legal mechanism - the pruzbul - to transfer the private loan into a loan made by the courts, which was not legally subject to the laws of the cancellation of debts on the shmita year. This legalism in assigning the loan to the court and removing it from the purview of shmitat ksafim had the desired effect and the flow of money and loans between lenders and borrowers remained unaffected by the impending shmita year.

However, at first glance, one must be puzzled by the institution of pruzbul. What empowered Hillel to construct a legalism that on the surface clearly contradicts the very reasoning of the Torah in establishing shmitat ksafim? This is a great topic of discussion in the Talmud and throughout all later rabbinic writings.

In the Talmud itself there are two opinions voiced on this matter. One is that during the entire Second Temple period the laws of shmita as outlined in the Torah were no longer applicable. All of the laws then were only of rabbinic effect - a remembrance of the shmita ordinances of the Torah - and the rabbis did not ordain shmitat ksafim at all. Thus Hillel's achievement was to create a positive remembrance of the Torah's ordinance by instituting the pruzbul so that the public would always recall that when the Torah ordinances would in the future be once again applicable.

Tosafot there comments that during the entire period of the Second Temple the Torah concept of shmita was not applicable because a majority of the Jewish people lived outside of the Land of Israel. Thus there was no yovel - no jubilee year - and hence no shmita either. According to Tosafot's opinion one can state that the Torah shmita was never observed properly in the Land of Israel by the Jewish nation. The First Temple Jews were exiled because of non-observance of shmita, and the Second Temple Jews only had a rabbinically ordained remembrance of shmita in their time.

The second opinion is that Hillel's ordinance was not a new thing but merely publicized an already existing "loophole" in Torah law which allowed private debt to be converted into debt to the courts. Hillel's act was merely one of publicizing this loophole to allow the free flow of credit to continue even in the year before the shmita. Thus even when the Torah shmita is reestablished, the use of the pruzbul will continue, since the legal loophole will then still be present.

Over the ages there has been much discussion of the pruzbul and its necessity. For a long period of time, Jews living in the Diaspora never used a pruzbul. The logic was that shmita after the destruction of the First Temple was only a rabbinic remembrance and the rabbis never instituted it to be followed outside the boundaries of the Land of Israel. Just as there is no shmita of land outside of the Land of Israel, there is no shmitat ksafim either.

However, there were great rabbis who dissented from this view and stated that shmitat ksafim still prevailed outside the Land of Israel and therefore a pruzbul was necessary to prevent the automatic cancellation of the loan. Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh), when he became the rabbi in Toledo, Spain, at the beginning of the 14th century, attempted to introduce the pruzbul in his community. But he himself ruefully wrote of his inability to have the Jews of Toledo follow his ruling.

Over the generations, the institution of pruzbul has taken hold even in Diaspora communities. Many rabbis saw it as a matter of sanctity and remembrance, even if not of necessity, and therefore encouraged its general use. It became one of the methods of keeping the Land of Israel fresh in the minds of Jews living in exile. Hillel's foresight had many positive results.

Instead of ginning up the pruzbul, why didn't Hillel argue the need to abandon shmitat ksafim because it was unhelpful? Is there really no Judaically acceptable way to argue such a thing? Must we always get stuck with these absurd constructions by which we evade the law without actually breaking it?

buddy:

 715 million people watched the last world cup final.

100 million people watched the last super bowl - maybe. 

and taking a penalty kick is a little harder than a layup drill - for example, you don't have the center standing over you as you go up, trying to block it. 

I had no idea I lived in such a sports bubble until the other night when I was watching TV and I came across this strange sport.  It was a little like American football, but even more incomprehensible.  My Israeli friend had to explain that it was rugby, which I had at least heard of, but never seen before.  It looked quite painful.

The superbowl is carried in more countries simply because there are americans in those countries who want to watch it. The local populace are not interested.

I think Mason did a wonderful job of giving a glaring example of what Mr. Eugenides talking about. Was that planned? Sadily, for the most part, Americans view all other places in the world as either potential vacation spots or potential sources of income - thats about all the thought that goes into. And to be fair, the occasional celebrity foreign adoption does get a few oohhhs and aahhss, how nice, poor people.

Are not very hard. Far more are made than missed. I actually meant to say the lay-up drill should be over a center. It would still be quite easy, and awful way for a game to be decided.

If you can't admit that penalty kicks are lame, that is better for you, as it happens so often.

I don't see how I am a glaring example of what Eugi...is talking about. I don't see the world Anon said at all. It is just silly to say American sports are not loved around the world.

Saying that baseball is just played in the US us grossly inaccurate.

Also, I have a friend in London, who is dying to move to the US, explain to me why it is so hard for the English to get greencards. She said if they could, England would be empty the next day.