Going down the "Baseball is dying" path (split)

[stevejrogers]

Edgy DC wrote: For the last time, I don't care how other sports are doing. More power to them, I guess, but I don't know who Chris Simms is. Other attractions expanding does not mean baseball is in decline.

Then what do you want then?

"Baseball's numbers are declining" "Yeah, but so are everyonelse's"

"Other attractions are exanding" "Well good for them then"

Look, the NBA has been in a decline for years as well, I don't see the NBA closing up it's doors and certaintly it's merchandise is selling like hotcakes as well, be it games, jerseys, DVDs, ect.

I'm just saying that the "growth" of baseball is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Baseball ceased to be "The National Pastime" People in NY really can't tell you who Craig Biggio is or Todd Helton or Mike Sweeney. Does that matter? Well no, but there was a time where people in NY could tell you who a Bobby Allison was, or a Norm Cash, Jim Maloney or any of the top stars on the other teams. Hell there was a time where one really could list the entire lineups of every team. There was no need for a KTE thread in 1960, 1970 because everyone knew their enemies! And don't say "Yeah but there are more teams now" because when New Yorkers knew who Nate Colbert was, or a Mike Hegan, there were 24 teams. Sure now it's 30, but 24 different lineups, or even go back to 16 different lineups is still alot of lineups to recall no matter how you slice it

[Guest Edgy DC]

="SteveJRogers"]"Baseball's numbers are declining" "Yeah, but so are everyonelse's"

You haven't made the former statement and I haven't responded with the latter one. So please stop making stuff up.

If you're claiming now that Major League Baseball's numbers are declining, I'll ask you to document it.

[stevejrogers]

Vic Sage wrote: ]It is thought they can make more money in those sports that statement right there discredits this guy. Baseball is the only sport without a salary cap, and the high end salaries (not to mention greater length of career and relative lack of serious injuries), makes baseball a much better career choice than any other sport. While its true that black athletes have gravitated to basketball and, to a lesser extent, football, rather than baseball, that development has more to do with greater inner city access to those sports. And if your a 300 pound guy, your more likely to excel at football (or maybe as a center in basketball) than you are in baseball, which is more of a skill game than a game of pure athletic ability. baseball is a harder sport, not a less remunerative one.

Fair point there. But I think the point that the guy was trying to make was more that the money is right there up front. Sure you have signing bonuses now thanks to the Van Poppels of the world, but still it takes a few years before you even get to your first million dollar payday in baseball, while in basketball and football, you have multi-millionaires signed right out of the draft. There is no floor, or minor league system, that you work your way through.

[stevejrogers]

="Edgy DC"] ="SteveJRogers"]"Baseball's numbers are declining" "Yeah, but so are everyonelse's" You haven't made the former statement and I haven't responded with the latter one. So please stop making stuff up. If you're claiming now that Major League Baseball's numbers are declining, I'll ask you to document it.

]Six years old but after McGwire, Ripken and Sosa "saved the game" after the 1994 strike: http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/135820/gallup-reveals-decline-in-baseball-s-popularity GALLUP REVEALS DECLINE IN BASEBALL?S POPULARITY Thu, 27/09/2001 - 23:00 American Football | Baseball | Basketball A Gallup poll conducted just before the start of the new baseball season has revealed that only 12 percent of US respondents chose baseball as their "favourite sport to watch". This represents a 1 percent drop from last year?s figures and a 9 percent drop in popularity since 1994. However, 56 percent of respondents said they are fans of major league baseball. This group of fans approved of innovations such as inter-league play, league-championship playoffs and the inclusion of wild-card playoff teams. But 58 percent said that players? salaries were a "change for the worse? with 79 percent saying that team owners should be allowed to institute a salary cap. Only the Yankees and the Braves recorded double digit ?favourite team? status among the respondents The poll concluded that American Football (28%) was the most popular sport to watch followed by basketball (16%).

[seawolf17]

Boy, I hate that argument. You know how many kids come into my office or stop by our table at college fairs thinking they're jumping to the NBA or the NFL out of college? Literally hundreds. How many of them have made it? I'd bet zero. So this whole "make more money in the other sports" thing is hooey, Steve, so don't fall for it. There are probably hundreds more young people making money -- minor league money, but still money -- playing baseball than there are playing other sports.

If baseball isn't growing, then where is all this money coming from? I don't think the Seibu Lions accepted $51 million worth of smoke from John Henry and his crew. And I don't think George Steinbrenner pays his employees in mirrors. I'm not saying there isn't a big market/small market disparity, but to "blame" other sports for whatever perceived problems you think baseball has is crap.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Steve, I appreciate you thinking it's dire that baseball isn't people's favorite thing as often as it used to be, but there are many more things these days, and more leisure time. Cripe, do you see how much porn is readily available?

The important things: people are buying tickets and watching games, more than they used to. Polling numbers are not the bottom line.

[TransMonk]

Just to add something to Steve's side argument (which really should have been split into another thread, because the original discussion was rather interesting), here is some hard data rather than numbers coming out of sports talk radio, wikipedia pages or a biased book from 10 years ago:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=622

These are the Harris polls of Americans and their favorite sports from 1985-2005. It even provides some breakdowns by race, income, age and education.

In support of Steve's argument, it does show a 9% drop in baseball's popularity over the past 20 years as well as a 9% increase in the NFL's popularity. It also shows an increase in NCAA Football as well as auto racing. However, baseball still is, and has been for the past 20 years, the 2nd favorite sport among American sports fans according to this poll.

The poll doesn't say it, but I would venture to say that baseball had more worldwide appeal than the NFL...and baseball's worldwide appeal is very minute compared to much more popular competitive sports that American's know little to nothing about like soccer, rugby, cricket, table tennis and kickboxing.

[metsmarathon]

one important take-away from that harris poll - baseball is the number one sport in two of the most influencial and growing-in-influence demographics - echo boomers and hispanics.

18-27 year olds love baseball, and the nations' growing hispanic population loves baseball.

it ain't so dire is it?

also, i'd like to know how this poll looks if you factor in those who only follow ONE sport (25% of respondents), as well as a poll that asks "what sports do you follow"

because that would tell a lot more about the popularity of baseball and its pervasity (i made up a word) in our sporting society.

[Guest martin]

nascar isnt really continuing to pick up ground on baseball and other sports.

usa today:

"NASCAR's growth slows after 15 years in the fast lane"

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/2006-11-14-nascar-cover_x.htm

"estimates from NASCAR reports show crowds have decreased in a third of the races this season."

arent the attendance numbers for baseball rising? nascar seems to be a counterexample for your argument.

[metsmarathon]

also, and i think edgy had a similar point -

what does it matter if people like football better? that seems to be a bigger problem for basketball and hockey than it is for a sport that it barely competes against for viewership and attendance.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Once upon a time, the Lords of Sport decided that NASCAR should stay below the Mason-Dixon Line, and the NHL above. But then a huge economic expansion hit America in the nineties, people had more money to spend, and both of these sports soon saturated their marketplaces. They both expanded into each other's territory and both got richer, rather than put each other out of business, because richer people consume more crap.

[Frayed Knot]

Seeing as how I've been hearing about the death of baseball since at least the time I was hearing about the death of Paul McCartney - and with about as much accuracy - forgive me if this issue doesn't get me too excited.
Plus, the whole baseball v football argument is a lot like the ones cat & dog owners have which each other about which species is smarter. In both cases, each side loads up on examples which are unique strengths of that particular sport/critter all of which shows nothing more profound than the discovery that dogs are much better at being dogs than cats are and vice versa.

[Willets Point]

Best baseball/football comparison ever, by George Carlin:

]Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out. Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring. In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom. Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values. I enjoy comparing baseball and football: Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle. Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium. Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying. In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap. Football is concerned with downs - what down is it? Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up? In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error. In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody. Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice. Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog... In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play. Baseball has the seventh inning stretch. Football has the two minute warning. Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings. Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death. In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness. In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being. And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different: In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line. In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Nonsense! Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post nailed it.


Why Is Baseball So Much Better Than Football?
by Thomas Boswell (1987)

# Reasons Why Baseball is so Much Better than Football by Thomas Boswell
1 Bands.

2 Half time with bands.

3 Cheerleaders at half time with bands.

4 Up With People singing "The Impossible Dream" during a Blue Angels flyover at half time with bands.

5 Baseball has fans in Wrigley Field singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at the seventh-inning stretch.

6 Baseball has Blue Moon, Catfish, Spaceman and The Sugar Bear. Football has Lester the Molester, Too Mean and The Assassin.

7 All XX Super Bowls haven't produced as much drama as the last World Series.

8 All XX Super Bowls haven't produced as many classic games as either pennant playoff did this year.

9 Baseball has a bullpen coach blowing bubble gum with his cap turned around backward while leaning on a fungo bat; football has a defensive coordinator in a satin jacket with a headset and a clipboard.

10 The Redskins have 13 assistant coaches, five equipment managers, three trainers, two assistant GMs but, for 14 games, nobody who could kick an extra point.

11 Football players and coaches don't know how to bait a ref, much less jump up and down and scream in his face. Baseball players know how to argue with umps; baseball managers even kick dirt on them. Earl Weaver steals third base and won't give it back; Tom Landry folds his arms.

12 Vince Lombardi was never ashamed that he said, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."

13 Football coaches talk about character, gut checks, intensity and reckless abandon. Tommy Lasorda said, "Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it flies away."

14 Big league baseball players chew tobacco. Pro football linemen chew on each other.

15 Before a baseball game, there are two hours of batting practice. Before a football game, there's a two-hour traffic jam.

16 A crowd of 30,000 in a stadium built for 55,501 has a lot more fun than a crowd of 55,501 in the same stadium.

17 No one has ever actually reached the end of the restroom line at an NFL game.

18 Nine innings means 18 chances at the hot dog line. Two halves means B.Y.O. or go hungry.

19 Pro football players have breasts. Many NFLers are so freakishly overdeveloped, due to steroids, that they look like circus geeks. Baseball players seem like normal fit folks. Fans should be thankful they don't have to look at NFL teams in bathing suits.

20 Eighty degrees, a cold beer and a short-sleeve shirt is better than 30 degrees, a hip flask and six layers of clothes under a lap blanket. Take your pick: suntan or frostbite.

21 Having 162 games a year is 10.125 times as good as having 16.

22 If you miss your favorite NFL team's game, you have to wait a week. In baseball, you wait a day.

23 Everything George Carlin said in his famous monologue is right on. In football you blitz, bomb, spear, shiver, march and score. In baseball, you wait for a walk, take your stretch, toe the rubber, tap your spikes, play ball and run home.

24 Marianne Moore loved Christy Mathewson. No woman of quality has ever preferred football to baseball.

25 More good baseball books appear in a single year than have been written about football in the past 50 years. The best football writers, like Dan Jenkins, have the good sense to write about something else most of the time.

26 The best football announcer ever was Howard Cosell.

27 The worst baseball announcer ever was Howard Cosell.

28 All gridirons are identical; football coaches never have to meet to go over the ground rules. But the best baseball parks are unique.

29 Every outdoor park ever built primarily for baseball has been pretty. Every stadium built with pro football in mind has been ugly (except Arrowhead).

30 The coin flip at the beginning of football games is idiotic. Home teams should always kick off and pick a goal to defend. In baseball, the visitor bats first (courtesy), while the host bats last (for drama). The football visitor should get the first chance to score, while the home team should have the dramatic advantage of receiving the second-half kickoff.

31 Baseball is harder. In the last 25 years, only one player, Vince Coleman, has been cut from the NFL and then become a success in the majors. From Tom Brown in 1963 (Senators to Packers) to Jay Schroeder (Jays to Redskins), baseball flops have become NFL standouts.

32 Face masks. Right away we've got a clue something might be wrong. A guy can go 80 mph on a Harley without a helmet, much less a face mask.

33 Faces are better than helmets. Think of all the players in the NFL (excluding Redskins) whom you'd recognize on the street. Now eliminate the quarterbacks. Not many left, are there? Now think of all the baseball players whose faces you know, just from the last Series.

34 The NFL has — how can we say this? — a few borderline godfathers. Baseball has almost no mobsters or suspicious types among its owners. Pete Rozelle isn't as picky as Bowie Kuhn, who for 15 years considered "integrity of the game" to be one of his key functions and who gave the cold shoulder to the shady money guys.

35 Football has Tank and Mean Joe. Baseball has The Human Rain Delay and Charlie Hustle.

36 In football, it's team first, individual second — if at all. A Rich Milot and a Curtis Jordan can play 10 years — but when would we ever have time to study them alone for just one game? Could we mimic their gestures, their tics, their habits? A baseball player is an individual first, then part of a team second. You can study him at length and at leisure in the batter's box or on the mound. On defense, when the batted ball seeks him, so do our eyes.

37 Baseball statistics open a world to us. Football statistics are virtually useless or, worse, misleading. For instance, the NFL quarterback-ranking system is a joke. Nobody understands it or can justify it. The old average-gain-per- attempt rankings were just as good.

38 What kind of dim-bulb sport would rank pass receivers by number of catches instead of by number of yards? Only in football would a runner with 1,100 yards on 300 carries be rated ahead of a back with 1,000 yards on 200 carries. Does baseball give its silver bat to the player with the most hits or with the highest average?

39 If you use NFL team statistics as a betting tool, you go broke. Only wins and losses, points and points against and turnovers are worth a damn.

40 Baseball has one designated hitter. In football, everybody is a designated something. No one plays the whole game anymore. Football worships the specialists. Baseball worships the generalists.

41 The tense closing seconds of crucial baseball games are decided by distinctive relief pitchers like Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers or Goose Gossage. Vital NFL games are decided by helmeted gentlemen who come on for 10 seconds, kick sideways, spend the rest of the game keeping their precious foot warm on the sidelines and aren't aware of the subtleties of the game. Half of them, in Alex Karras' words, run off the field chirping, "I kick a touchdown."

42 Football gave us The Fudge Hammer. Baseball gave us The Hammer.

43 How can you respect a game that uses only the point after touchdown and completely ignores the option of a two-point conversion, which would make the end of football games much more exciting.

44 Wild cards. If baseball can stick with four divisional champs out of 26 teams, why does the NFL need to invite 10 of its 28 to the prom? Could it be that football isn't terribly interesting unless your team can still "win it all"?

45 The entire NFL playoff system is a fraud. Go on, explain with a straight face why the Chiefs (10-6) were in the playoffs but the Seahawks (10-6) were not. There is no real reason. Seattle was simply left out for convenience. When baseball tried the comparably bogus split-season fiasco with half-season champions in 1981, fans almost rioted.

46 Parity scheduling. How can the NFL defend the fairness of deliberately giving easier schedules to weaker teams and harder schedules to better teams? Just to generate artificially improved competition? When a weak team with a patsy schedule goes 10-6, while a strong defending division champ misses the playoffs at 9-7, nobody says boo. Baseball would have open revolt at such a nauseatingly cynical system.

47 Baseball has no penalty for pass interference. (This in itself is almost enough to declare baseball the better game.) In football, offsides is five yards, holding is 10 yards, a personal foul is 15 yards. But interference: maybe 50 yards.

48 Nobody on earth really knows what pass interference is. Part judgment, part acting, mostly accident.

49 Baseball has no penalties at all. A home run is a home run. You cheer. In football, on a score, you look for flags. If there's one, who's it on? When can we cheer? Football acts can all be repealed. Baseball acts stand forever.

50 Instant replays. Just when we thought there couldn't be anything worse than penalties, we get instant replays of penalties. Talk about a bad joke. Now any play, even one with no flags, can be called back. Even a flag itself can, after five minutes of boring delay, be nullified. NFL time has entered the Twilight Zone. Nothing is real; everything is hypothetical.

51 Football has Hacksaw. Baseball has Steady Eddie and The Candy Man.

52 The NFL's style of play has been stagnant for decades, predictable. Turn on any NFL game and that's just what it could be — any NFL game. Teams seem interchangeable. Even the wishbone is too radical. Baseball teams' styles are often determined by their personnel and even their parks.

53 Football fans tailgate before the big game. No baseball fan would have a picnic in a parking lot.

54 At a football game, you almost never leave saying, "I never saw a play like that before." At a baseball game, there's almost always some new wrinkle.

55 Beneath the NFL's infinite sameness lies infinite variety. But we aren't privy to it. So what if football is totally explicable and fascinating to Dan Marino as he tries to decide whether to audible to a quick trap? From the stands, we don't know one-thousandth of what's required to grasp a pro football game. If an NFL coach has to say, "I won't know until I see the films," then how out-in-the-cold does that leave the fan?

56 While football is the most closed of games, baseball is the most open. A fan with a score card, a modest knowledge of the teams and a knack for paying attention has all he needs to watch a game with sophistication.

57 NFL refs are weekend warriors, pulled from other jobs to moonlight; as a group, they're barely competent. That's really why the NFL turned to instant replays. Now, old fogies upstairs can't even get the make-over calls right. Baseball umps work 10 years in the minors and know what they are doing. Replays show how good they are. If Don Denkinger screws up in a split second of Series tension, it's instant lore.

58 Too many of the best NFL teams represent unpalatable values. The Bears are head-thumping braggarts. The Raiders have long been scofflaw pirates. The Cowboys glorify the heartless corporate approach to football.

59 Football has the Refrigerator. Baseball has Puff the Magic Dragon, The Wizard of Oz, Tom Terrific, Big Doggy, Kitty Kaat and Oil Can.

60 Football is impossible to watch. Admit it: The human head is at least two eyes shy for watching the forward pass. Do you watch the five eligible receivers? Or the quarterback and the pass rush? If you keep your eye on the ball, you never know who got open or how. If you watch the receivers . . . well, nobody watches the receivers. On TV, you don't even know how many receivers have gone out for a pass.

61 The NFL keeps changing the most basic rules. Most blocking now would have been illegal use of the hands in Jim Parker's time. How do we compare eras when the sport never stays the same? Pretty soon, intentional grounding will be legalized to protect quarterbacks.

62 In the NFL, you can't tell the players without an Intensive Care Unit report. Players get broken apart so fast we have no time to build up allegiances to stars. Three-quarters of the NFL's starting quarterbacks are in their first four years in the league. Is it because the new breed is better? Or because the old breed is already lame? A top baseball player lasts 15 to 20 years. We know him like an old friend.

63 The baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, N.Y., beside James Fenimore Cooper's Lake Glimmerglass; the football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, beside the freeway.

64 Baseball means Spring's Here. Football means Winter's Coming.

65 Best book for a lifetime on a desert island: The Baseball Encyclopedia.

66 Baseball's record on race relations is poor. But football's is much worse. Is it possible that the NFL still has NEVER had a black head coach? And why is a black quarterback still as rare as a bilingual woodpecker?

67 Baseball has a drug problem comparable to society's. Pro football has a range of substance-abuse problems comparable only to itself. And, perhaps, The Hells Angels'.

68 Baseball enriches language and imagination at almost every point of contact. As John Lardner put it, "Babe Herman did not triple into a triple play, but he did double into a double play, which is the next best thing."

69 Who's on First?

70 Without baseball, there'd have been no Fenway Park. Without football, there'd have been no artificial turf.

71 A typical baseball game has nine runs, more than 250 pitches and about 80 completed plays — hits, walks, outs — in 2� hours. A typical football game has about five touchdowns, a couple of field goals and fewer than 150 plays spread over three hours. Of those plays, perhaps 20 or 25 result in a gain or loss of more than 10 yards. Baseball has more scoring plays, more serious scoring threats and more meaningful action plays.

72 Baseball has no clock. Yes, you were waiting for that. The comeback, from three or more scores behind, is far more common in baseball than football.

73 The majority of players on a football field in any game are lost and unaccountable in the middle of pileups. Confusion hides a multitude of sins. Every baseball player's performance and contribution are measured and recorded in every game.

74 Some San Francisco linemen now wear dark plexiglass visors inside their face masks -- even at night. "And in the third round, out of Empire U., the 49ers would like to pick Darth Vader."

75 Someday, just once, could we have a punt without a penalty?

76 End-zone spikes. Sack dances. Or, in Dexter Manley's case, "holding flag" dances.

77 Unbelievably stupid rules. For example, if the two-minute warning passes, any play that begins even a split second thereafter is nullified. Even, as happened in this season's Washington-San Francisco game, when it's the decisive play of the entire game. And even when, as also happened in that game, not one of the 22 players on the field is aware that the two-minute mark has passed. The Skins stopped the 49ers on fourth down to save that game. They exulted; the 49ers started off the field. Then the refs said, "Play the down over." Absolutely unbelievable.

78 In baseball, fans catch foul balls. In football, they raise a net so you can't even catch an extra point.

79 Nothing in baseball is as boring as the four hours of ABC's "Monday Night Football."

80 Blowhard coach Buddy Ryan, who gave himself a grade of A+ for his handling of the Eagles. "I didn't make any mistakes," he explained. His 5-10-1 team was 7-9 the year before he came.

81 Football players, somewhere back in their phylogenic development, learned how to talk like football coaches. ("Our goals this week were to contain Dickerson and control the line of scrimmage.") Baseball players say things like, "This pitcher's so bad that when he comes in, the grounds crew drags the warning track."

82 Football coaches walk across the field after the game and pretend to congratulate the opposing coach. Baseball managers head right for the beer.

83 The best ever in each sport - Babe Ruth and Jim Brown — each represents egocentric excess. But Ruth never threw a woman out a window.

84 Quarterbacks have to ask the crowd to quiet down. Pitchers never do.

85 Baseball nicknames go on forever - because we feel we know so many players intimately. Football monikers run out fast. We just don't know that many of them as people.

86 Baseball measures a gift for dailiness.

87 Football has two weeks of hype before the Super Bowl. Baseball takes about two days off before the World Series.

88 Football, because of its self-importance, minimizes a sense of humor. Baseball cultivates one. Knowing you'll lose at least 60 games every season makes self-deprecation a survival tool. As Casey Stengel said to his barber, "Don't cut my throat. I may want to do that myself later."

89 Football is played best full of adrenaline and anger. Moderation seldom finds a place. Almost every act of baseball is a blending of effort and control; too much of either is fatal.

90 Football's real problem is not that it glorifies violence, though it does, but that it offers no successful alternative to violence. In baseball, there is a choice of methods: the change-up or the knuckleball, the bunt or the hit-and-run.

91 Baseball is vastly better in person than on TV. Only when you're in the ballpark can the eye grasp and interconnect the game's great distances. Will the wind blow that long fly just over the fence? Will the relay throw nail the runner trying to score from second on a double in the alley? Who's warming up in the bullpen? Where is the defense shading this hitter? Did the base stealer get a good jump? The eye flicks back and forth and captures everything that is necessary. As for replays, most parks have them. Football is better on TV. At least, you don't need binoculars. And you've got your replays.

92 Turning the car radio dial on a summer night.

93 George Steinbrenner learned his baseball methods as a football coach.

94 You'll never see a woman in a fur coat at a baseball game.

95 You'll never see a man in a fur coat at a baseball game.

96 A six-month pennant race. Football has nothing like it.

97 In football, nobody says, "Let's play two!"

98 When a baseball player gets knocked out, he goes to the showers. When a football player gets knocked out, he goes to get X-rayed.

99 Most of all, baseball is better than football because spring training is less than a month away.

[Guest attgig]

i'm sure someone can can come up with a list of 99 reasons why football is better than baseball - with tons of them being the same reasons listed above, but just worded differently.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

attgig wrote: i'm sure someone can can come up with a list of 99 reasons why football is better than baseball - with tons of them being the same reasons listed above, but just worded differently.

Well, yeah. But they'd be wrong.

[nymr83]

]Plus, the whole baseball v football argument is a lot like the ones cat & dog owners have which each other about which species is smarter. In both cases, each side loads up on examples which are unique strengths of that particular sport/critter all of which shows nothing more profound than the discovery that dogs are much better at being dogs than cats are and vice versa.

Dogs are way better than cats.

[Willets Point]

Without looking at hard statistics I'd gather that 50+ years ago the most popular spectator sports in the USA were baseball, boxing, and horse racing. With the exception of some over hyped heavyweight title bouts and the Triple Crown races, these sports have moved to the fringes. In fact, I think NASCAR has taken over the racing niche in a high-tech format and professional wrestling by being blatantly fake is more acceptable the boxing's corruption. Compared to these baseball is still going strong and nothing has replaced it's niche. The sports market is a lot wider than it ever has been and people have a lot more time and money to spend watching sports on TV and in person, and obviously people follow more than one sport. Baseball has lost it's unique place as the National Pastime and most popular sport, but at the same time I think more people are following baseball now than they did in its glory days. So I'm not worried about baseball, it has its place, it has its fans, it has its tradition and I don't think any of that is going away anytime soon.

Oh, and cats are better than dogs.

[seawolf17]

Dogs can kick cats' collective asses from here to next week.

[nymr83]

By virtue of its being scripted, professional wrestling cannot really be considered a "sport."
I'd rather not argue about what else is or is not a sport right now, other than to say that I think, at a bare minimum, you need to have two (or more) sides (or individuals) who are both (or all) making a legitimate attempt to win by whatever rules the sport prescribes. any game/entertainment in which the winner is pre-ordained is not a "sport."
Before some idiot says otherwise, I'll add that I am in no way disparaging the real wrestlng that goes on at the high school level (and presumably elsewhere that i am not aware of.)

[Guest Iubitul]

I think Boswell put it even better with the title of his book, Why Time Begins On Opening Day

I enjoy other sports, but they are mainly filler between baseball seasons.

[stevejrogers]

martin wrote: arent the attendance numbers for baseball rising?

Take away the big markets and the increase really is "smoke and mirrors" Look at my Philly example somewhere in this thread.

NO ONE was going to the ballpark to see the Phils this past September when they were in the middle of a "down to the final day" chase for the wild card, with Ryan Howard making a charge for 50+ homers, and they entered September with a sliver of hope of catching the Mets.

Reverse the situation, Shea is PACKED 55,000 strong every night, no one is paying attention to the start of the Giants and Jets untill after the Mets just run out of time on the last day of the season.

Pro Golf is also on the inclimb as well if you want to discount NASCAR, and think about this for a second.

What network has ever MADE money on the MLB package?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Steve J., they drew 2.7 million fans this year!

[stevejrogers]

I think thats more of a reflection of the "New Ballpark Spike" rather than interest in the Phils.

Philly still hasn't come back since 1994, despite being in the scrum of things in recent years. There was more attention paid to the Eagles than there were to the Phillies, where in New York, that will never happen.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

SteveJRogers wrote: I think thats more of a reflection of the "New Ballpark Spike" rather than interest in the Phils.

Well, you also thought that no one was going to the ballpark and we see how accurate that thought was.

]Philly still hasn't come back since 1994, despite being in the scrum of things in recent years.

They've outdrawn every team since 93 in the last 2 years.

]There was more attention paid to the Eagles than there were to the Phillies, where in New York, that will never happen.

People are nuts about the Eagles in Philly, but it didn;t stop the Phillies from drawing nearly 3 million fans. You have no point here, Steve. Give it up.

[metirish]

SteveJRogers wrote: I think thats more of a reflection of the "New Ballpark Spike" rather than interest in the Phils. Philly still hasn't come back since 1994, despite being in the scrum of things in recent years. There was more attention paid to the Eagles than there were to the Phillies, where in New York, that will never happen.

I think Ryan Howard might be getting some people to the park,nothing like a hown grown slugger who by all accounts is not a bollox but a decent guy.

[nymr83]

Steve, you don't have ANYTHING credible to back you up on your anti-baseball crusade. The attendance is up, the revenue is up. who cares if the networks haven't profitted on MLB (and i'm not conceding that, i'm just saying its a moot point right now), they keep signing the deals and BASEBALL is profiting from them.

[stevejrogers]

Nymr83 wrote: Steve, you don't have ANYTHING credible to back you up on your anti-baseball crusade. The attendance is up, the revenue is up. who cares if the networks haven't profitted on MLB (and i'm not conceding that, i'm just saying its a moot point right now), they keep signing the deals and BASEBALL is profiting from them.

Again, it's a matter of perspective. You think baseball attendance is up, but it's only up in the big markets, and places with very new stadiums.

And Philly very much is one of those cities often cited as "they haven't come back since 1994" ala KC, Pittsburgh, ect

Baseball attendance is pure smoke and mirrors. Take out NY, take out Boston, take out LA/Anaheim, take out Chicago and you have a House Of Cards.

[Guest Edgy DC]

But it's going to take at least a dozen warheads to take out those cities, Steve.

[stevejrogers]

Attendance is usually fine in New York, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, ect but no one is suggesting hockey is a thriving sport.

Attendance in large markets are fine in pro hoops, but no one is yet saying that the NBA is back to it's 80's-early 90's heydays