There was a point during the Zimbabwe - Oman T20 World Cup game on Monday when I just… got it. Not “Why do people like cricket?”¹ but “the game within the game” at the most basic level. After roughly a year of watching in drips and drabs², the deluge of cricket coming directly into my eyeballs through the past week of 4:30 and 8:30 AM games has started to seep into my brain. In that moment an understanding of the game that went beyond “you see, there’s two guys playing running bases and a bunch of people trying to catch the ball when they hit it after another guy throws it at sticks behind them” began.

It wasn’t some sort of Good Will Hunting situation where I could calculate strike rate or reverse engineer the “skill scale” in my head, though. I just understood that Oman was, quite frankly, relatively shitty at cricket compared to the rest of the teams in the tournament. Being able to jump from “I wonder if that’s a good score” to “Boy howdy did Oman bork that” felt like a new frontier in my ability to comprehend what I was watching.

Much in the same way that learning a new/foreign language, watching a new sport starts off with almost a wall of white noise and static hitting your ears and eyes as your brain tries to decipher what it’s ingesting while deprogramming itself from anticipating what it’s used to receiving. There’s a language and rhythm that is inherent to all of them, and depending on the insularity of its fan bases and elite figures, can be a major barrier to entry for potential new fans.

It’s not until you can gradually start recognizing certain words and phrases that things start to become clear. Like winning by runs or wickets simply being a function of who batted first (win by runs, you hit first; win by wickets, you went second.) At some point, picking up on context clues just becomes the context in which you are able to understand things. You, as it is often put, become able to “think” in the language, as opposed to constantly translating things in your head.

And once you do, you can start to work through within the problem set that the new language (or in our case, sport) provides. Like the very solvable puzzle of Wednesday morning’s Australia-Ireland game, when Australia ended the game after they got their just ninth wicket. Even a week ago, I would have sat there confused, unsure if I misunderstood a fundamental part of the game. Instead, I very quickly realized that Ireland probably had a batter retire due to injury and therefore only had nine wickets to spare (as each wicket lost means the end of that batter’s turn).

It’s this ability to apply ambient knowledge to practical situations that, at least for me, makes learning new things is fun, though I understand it’s not something everyone enjoys, as it can also make you feel weird. And to be clear, I don’t mean that in some hippie way nor in a metaphorical sense about the nature of internal growth.

Literally, when you learn shit, it can make your brain go all tingly. I am not much of a biologist, but I assume that the feeling you get when you are actually able to have an idea “click” in your mind is caused by neural pathways being built in real time into your brain or parts of your brain that have previously not been used as frequently being activated in ways that its not used to.

That specific kind of point-source sensation of mind expansion usually happens when you come across a significant new word³ or encounter a new perspective that allows you to understand a previously opaque part of a larger whole you are intimately familiar with but couldn’t quite articulate. More often than not, though, coming into the understanding happens gradually and the tingly feeling goes from an epiphanic moment of “a-ha” to a micro dose of “oooh”’s and “shit, I guess…”-es.

Most folks prefer one or the other, essentially split into people who enjoy the process of learning and those who prefer the knowing of things. For the need-to-knower⁴, the goal is to gather facts and framings, creating a kind of mental sanctuary wherein they can secure in the way the world works. Huey Duck (the duck with the red hat and shirt⁵) demonstrates that mentality in action here:

There’s nothing wrong with this way of thinking, in and of itself. But when the goal is solely the accumulation of facts, you run the risk of validating yourself not through your ability to put things in context, but holding onto those facts because they make you feel comfortable in them. This resistance to change becomes an inability to incorporate facts into your world view, which itself can curdle into the kind of resentment of different that permeates much of modern culture⁶.

That doesn’t mean the other end of the spectrum is much better, as the journey becoming the destination only really works when it’s coupled with experience to which the knowledge can apply. If you just seek out new experiences simply because of an underlying discomfort with where you’re at (as opposed to a means by which to improve yourself,) it can be difficult to actually build any sense of identity or even a working moral code or compass⁷.

Somewhere in between these two poles, as is the case with most things, is usually the best place to be. Asking questions for the sake of “just asking questions” is bad, but doing with some kind of goal you’re building towards is how life in general should be handled. Especially when it comes to something as low stakes but significant as sports, doing so is key to building communities of like-minded people.

For us, here at obscure sports america HQ, sports are both a fun thing to watch and discuss, especially with our friends and a journey through which we learn about the world. People much smarter than us have written extensively about the role that sports have played in revolutions and political movements, but the overwhelming majority of the time they exist as here to talk shit about dumb stuff that is happening or how insanely good someone is at whatever we’re watching in awe.

So while we acknowledge those important facets of sport’s legacy as a cultural cornerstone, we’re mostly talking here about the way things the Norwegian biathlete who begged his girlfriend to come back after winning bronze brings us together (to talk shit about him). Or how talking to a friend about what’s going on in one of their favorite sports, especially if their fandom was essentially a secret to you before then and you’ve now found something you can share to deepen your connection with them.

It can be a bonding and learning experience for both of you. Like, for instance, asking what exactly the funny hat some of the rugby players wear is all about. You’ll learn that they are called scrum caps and that their purpose is two-fold: to prevent concussions and to keep ears attached to the heads of the players.

See: Learning is fun! Even when the knowledge itself is cursed.

Wednesday at 13:05 ET
Olympic Men's Curling

The mixed doubles may have only ended yesterday, but it is already time for the first day of the Men's Team Event. Four matches on during today's only session (and bonus points if you go with the quadbox on Peacock to watch them all). Sweden v. Italy, Canada v. Germany, Czechia v. United States, and China v. Great Britain.

Thursday at 14:00 ET
PDC Premier League Night 2

Although we aren't necessarily the biggest fans of the Premier League, this will be worth watching simply because it is the first time this event will be held in Belgium. The Belgian crowds are some of the best in darts, so this will certainly be worth tuning in for (at least for the first 20 minutes or so)

Friday at 18:00 ET
NCAA Men's Lax: #1 Maryland v. #2 Syracuse

Not much needs to be said about this one. #1 ranked Maryland travels to #2 Syracuse in a fantastic early season match up.

Saturday at 11:40 ET
Men's Six Nations: England v. Scotland

England will be big favorites heading into this match, but any time these two countries face off in ANY sport - it will be worth watching. We also can't neglect the cricket match between these two earlier in the day at 04:30.

Sunday at 15:00 ET
MASL: Baltimore v. Utica City

Although this may simply seem like a battle of two struggling teams (assuming you even bothered looking at the standings), this is a crucial game for playoff positioning. In an 8-team league where the top 6 make the playoffs, every point matters - especially if you want to have any hope at all heading into the back half of the season.

Monday at 08:30 ET
T20 World Cup: Australia v. Sri Lanka

The two favorites to make it out of Group B go head-to-head. The Sri Lankan crowd should ensure a great atmosphere for this match and it's on at a reasonable time of the day!

Tuesday at 14:30 ET
NCAA Women's Lax: Quinnipiac v. #12 Yale

The battle of New Haven! The Quinnipiac Bobcats travel to the second-best school in county.

The Darty Party USA podcast episode will be coming out a little later this week, because, well, we were too busy working on this, so we’re not going to be linking to it here. However, after last week’s debacle with the Premier League streaming situation (and, tbh, the PL itself,) we would be remiss if we didn’t mention how wonderful it is to have the PCs back in our lives.

Monday’s PC1 was a return to form for Europe’s second greatest sports tour⁹ but it was Tuesday’s final where the magic of darts really shone through. Dutchman boy Wessell Nijman — who, it needs to be said, basically looks like if a very large dart became sentient and learned to throw darts itself — was able to best a scorchin’ hot Gezzy Price in a last leg decider to win his fourth PC title in a relatively young career.

Gezzy had average over 107 for the entire tournament to that point in what was, at least according to these eyes (and those of longtime PDC commentator, Paul Nicholson) the single best performance by a player who didn’t win that day’s tournament, ever. It’s still a week away from the true beginning of the darts season with the Poland Darts Open, with two Players Championship between us and then, we’ll be just fine.