Baseball versus Football

[syrakusos]

This classic George Carlin routine is missing the line where he points out that baseball is so civilized that the uniforms have pockets:

I add that I prefer playing baseball to watching football. I am an engaged and active person. I also note that

• baseball requires a mix of skills that allows just about anyone of just about any size and shape to play the game and with nine such people, you get a good mix.
  
• Football required big guys -- really, really big guys. QBs at 6-foot and 180 are ground into dogfood.
  
• Football has one hero the QB and a bunch of disposable pawns who protect him. They take each other out while the QB and the receiver execute a play.
  
• In baseball, the team captain is the catcher -- the guy least capable of direct action, but best situated to observe and report.
  
• In baseball you get this new thing with beanballs and brush backs and there was always Ty Cobb sharpening his cleats, but those are exceptions, countertrends no one likes. IN football, breaking the QBs knees is the point. In baseball injuries are rare -- certainly unintended.
  
• Baseball (and cricket) may be the only game where the defense controls the ball.
  
• IN football, they get into a huddle and set their secret mission which they call on the numbers hut hut hut. In baseball, communication is open, but encoded, thus is far more a game of "intelligence" and "counter intelligence."
  
• In football you play in the worst imaginable weather: even hockey is not played in driving sleet. In baseball -- again there have been changes -- but traditionally, you call a game for weather, because it is a fair weather game, an outing.
  

[jordanz]

I prefer real football - i.e. the game where you move a ball around the field with your feet:

[syrakusos]

I add that ...

Also, in baseball, each person is individually responsible for a particular task. However, the game also rewards teamwork. Baseball statistics are individual -- Hits Runs Errors -- for each player. (ERA, etc, for pitchers). In football, the center does not have his own stats and neither do most of the linemen, less so the defensive line, if there can be less than nothing...

Girl's softball is something to watch. Girls football is inconceivable.

[John Dailey]

~ Here is my *1* Problem...with watching either of them: Unless you enjoy actually 'playing' such, what skills is one enjoying merely watching being performed? Simple ones. Throw-Catch-Run&Dodge/Tag(tackle). That's it; nm if one's actually at a game where one's not being tv-bombarded with 'action-filled replays' and incessant 'talking-head' air-time-filling air-heads, but instead, one must w-a-i-t 'till the next play. --- As I've said on another forum: we're not talking gymnastics, martial-arts or dance here, where coordination, balance, chronic-alertness, etc are necessary. Besides, now there's the 'steroid' stigma making the likes of Ruth's abilities irrelevent.

~ Add in that it's the coaches who are basically the actual 'players' (as in chess) while the so-called players are merely their directed pawns...eh-h-h-h....

~ But, as even with golf or tiddly-winks, for those who enjoy playing, that I can understand. It's the non-playing fans I don't.

LLAP

J:D

Edited February 6, 2008 by John Dailey

[Selene]

~ Here is my *1* Problem...with watching either of them: Unless you enjoy actually 'playing' such, what skills is one enjoying merely watching being performed? Simple ones. Throw-Catch-Run&Dodge/Tag(tackle). That's it; nm if one's actually at a game where one's not being tv-bombarded with 'action-filled replays' and incessant 'talking-head' air-time-filling air-heads, but instead, one must w-a-i-t 'till the next play. --- As I've said on another forum: we're not talking gymnastics, martial-arts or dance here, where coordination, balance, chronic-alertness, etc are necessary. Besides, now there's the 'steroid' stigma making the likes of Ruth's abilities irrelevent.

~ Add in that it's the coaches who are basically the actual 'players' (as in chess) while the so-called players are merely their directed pawns...eh-h-h-h....

~ But, as even with golf or tiddly-winks, for those who enjoy playing, that I can understand. It's the non-playing fans I don't.

LLAP

J:D

Respectfully, you really have no clue as to what a football team is about if you think that linemen are pawns. Moreover, football is statistical, both by position and by team.

However, your observations about playing baseball are quite true. It is a much "purer game", both statistically and in terms of skills not being reflected in terms of positional size.

Adam

[John Dailey]

Adam:

~ Respectfully, I think you have no clue as to what a football coach's place is within the (actually, HIS) 'team', beyond his pre-game pep-talking and post-game haranguing.

LLAP

J:D

[Selene]

Adam:

~ Respectfully, I think you have no clue as to what a football coach's place is within the (actually, HIS) 'team', beyond his pre-game pep-talking and post-game haranguing.

LLAP

J:D

I was right, you do not have a clue. Well, at least we agree on baseball.

Adam