The conservative love affair with baseball

The Daily Caller ^ | Setptember 2, 2010 | Caroline May

[Nick Danger]

Baseball ping

[wideawake]

Plenty of leftists love baseball and the MLB is the most bloated, anti-customer, unionized monopoly in the US.

[kosciusko51]

I haven’t seen much MLB lately, but then again, I live near Pittsburgh...

[massgopguy]

“Football has the Bomb and the Blitz. Baseball has a sacrifice. In football you score by penetrating the opponents End Zone. In baseball, you go Home. “I’m going Home...”” - George Carlin

[Paperdoll]

I am a Conservative, and I like Baseball. but actually, I’ve always thought golf was the game of conservatives. I love golf!

[highlander_UW]

Baseball versus Football

A classic from 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 withthe ball, and without the ball you can't score. 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 as the players do. If you had ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders football uniform, you would know the reason for this custom.

Now I've mentioned football. Baseball and 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. And maybe how those values have changed over the last 150 years. For those reasons 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 is 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? Are you up? I'm not up! He's up!"

In football you recieve 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...can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud on the field...can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will continue!

In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go out! It's raining out!"

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!"

Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have 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 that much unpleasantness.

In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being

And finally, the objectives of the the two games are completely different:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his recievers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the 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!"

[smith288]

GO REDS!

Aroldis Chapman is da maaaaan!

[SkiKnee]

“In football you have ‘penalties’, in baseball you have an ‘error’ ‘woops’”

[wku man]

Figures a pantywaist like George Will would sing the praises of baseball. You want a real American sport? GO HUNTING!!! And that doesn't mean sitting in a tree stand or deer blind, either...get out and stalk your prey.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[Nick Danger]

I haven’t seen much MLB lately, but then again, I live near Pittsburgh...

You need to retire to Florida. The Pirates' Class A farm team is headed for the playoffs.

[Vigilanteman]

Football is OK and I've come to appreciate it more the longer I live in the heart of the Steeler nation, but I still prefer baseball for the following reasons:

1. It is a summertime sport and summer is my favorite season.
   
2. The symettry of baseball is pure genius. A groundball stopped in the infield is almost a sure out, but even a minor misplay usually means the runner makes it safely.
   
3. A well-placed bunt is one of the most exciting plays in all sports. Infielders and runners must not only move quickly, but think quickly.
   
4. It really isn't over until it is over. A team can be behind 10 runs with two outs in their final at bat and still come back to win. A football team down two touchdowns in the final seconds has no such hope.
   
5. You can't win a baseball game by playing games with the clock and kneeling in the last few plays. If it were up to me, each football team would get 12 possessions (or whatever) and could only win by either holding the other team off in their final possession, or scoring the go ahead points.
   
6. Size really doesn't matter in baseball. A 5'11", 150# guy is probably not going to make it in football even as a kicker. But he could very well become one of baseball's greatest shortstops of all time.

[NautiNurse]

OR...you could spend the day honing your marksman skills followed by an evening of baseball. That’s how I spent last Saturday.

[CharacterCounts]

The Number of exciting minutes in a baseball game and a football game are not that much different. While we have to sit around waiting for the next pitch in baseball, we also must sit and wait while each team gets ready for it 5 second play in football.

[x]

This might have been more accurate before Ken Burns came and took baseball away.

Now it's hard to get rhapsodic about the game without hearing Doris Kearns Goodwin or Stephen Jay Gould blathering away about the game.

George Will ought to know that the more you describe a sport as "perfect" the more people are going to reject it.

There's something a little sterile about baseball worship that puts people off.

[GunningForTheBuddha]

I used to love baseball. Due to the players’ steroid abuse I don’t even recognize the game anymore.

[dfwgator]

The one thing baseball has over football. If I see a great play, I don’t have to immediately wonder if that play is going to be nullified by a penalty.

[Hunton Peck]

[dfwgator]

Frankly more and more that’s why I enjoy watching EPL soccer. The games have a flow to them, there aren’t constant stops and starts. And I know the game will be over in under 2 hours.

And for those who decry the low scoring in soccer, I say, what if the NFL did away with Field Goals, and a TD was only worth 1 point. Would the scores be all that much different from soccer?

[Vigilantcitizen]

That kid is something else. My God.

Go braves.