croissants?

So explaining it to Italians would be easier because the bases would be ravioli plus they've got meatballs?

Not so sure about meatballs. My mother was first generation Italian-American, and rarely made meatballs. Like, once a year. Something about stereotyping, plus they were, and are, a first class PITA to do well.

I hear meatballs, I think Sweden, not Italy.

What is this I don't even

I remain convinced baseball would be one of the more difficult games to explain to someone totally unfamiliar with it. With hockey, football, soccer...the goal of the game seems intuitive. Put the ball/puck in the net/endzone. There are secondary rules like offside or what is and isn't legal (fouls, penalties) that might take some explaining, but basically even if you don't understand the strategy within minutes you can understand what's going on.

Baseball has so many rules that are intuitive if you think about it, but may not be right off the bat.
For intsance --
Why isn't a foul ball a hit?
Why isn't a foul ball strike three?
Why does the runner sometimes get tagged and sometimes not?

I remain convinced baseball would be one of the more difficult games to explain to someone totally unfamiliar with it.

I was in grad school when the Braves turned from pumpkins to princes, and a labmate of mine really got into it. At first, she had an almost complete lack of knowledge about how the game worked; there were several times watching games on tv, and then in person, where she asked basic questions like those. It was quite adorable. By the time the postseason came along, she was fairly well-versed and a rabid fan. She was at my place during the infamous Sid Bream run to win the NLCS, but was in the bathroom when it happened. She heard the yelling and came into the living room, and after seeing what she had missed, instructed me never to tell anyone that she was on the toilet when the big event happened. She could not accept not having viewed it live, and was going to fake it.

But now you just told us. Is that any way to keep a promise?

[tongue in cheek, in case it isn't obvious.]

French-Jew’rney

That sounds like something South Park would make up.

“OK, that croissant down there, that’s first base,” I say.

I love it, only I might have used "lily pad" instead, and explained that the frogs jump from one pad to the next.

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French-Jew’rney

That sounds like something South Park would make up.

More likely it was lifted from Gilda Radner's SNL skit about "Soviet jewelry".

Why does the runner sometimes get tagged and sometimes not?

This one. Hell, I still have to explain it to my 11-12 YO little leaguers. They merely step on the bag when it's a tag play. They get in a silly rundown when it's a force play. Drives me nuts.

I remain convinced baseball would be one of the more difficult games to explain to someone totally unfamiliar with it.

In grad school, we successfully turned a lot of foreign students on to the game. It helps to play catch or even a little softball, so that they realize it's not as easy as the major leaguers make it look.

One thing that helps is that it's a very good ballpark experience. There's not much rowdyism compared to European soccer, and you can have a pretty pleasant experience even without knowing much about the game.

I've joined a baseball club in the UK and it's quite an experience being around people who are tremendous athletes, but don't really know baseball at all. We have a cricketer who picked up a baseball bat for the first time in his life two months ago, and is now leading the Midlands League in batting average. It's hard to wrap my head around giving pointers to someone who is a million times better at baseball than I'll ever be.

This reminds of how MLB tried to promote the game internationally following the 1993 season...by sending Len Dykstra to Europe. (Hey, I'm thankful the euro wasn't around yet; with the "Dude" getting involved in European finances, all of the continent might now be like Greece.)