Classic Baseball Writing: "99 Reasons Why Baseball is Better Than Football"

The Heart of the Order (New York: Doubleday, 1990) | First published: January 1987 | Thomas Boswell

[harbinger of doom]

My 2 beefs with the The Game presently are:

a) When you hit a homerun, pretend you've done it before and start running! No more watching it majestically sail into the stands before you start running.

b) Take your base when you get hit...it's a freebie! Don't charge the mound to get even. Steal second on his weak move to first and delivery to the plate; and pitcher's, you don't have to hit the next guy or the the guy who hit the dinger off of you the next time he comes up. Just make better pitches.

/rant

[RussP]

Lots of close plays at third base and home? Then I suggest they put them in the highlights. How long am I supposed to sit and watch guys trotting around the bases? I have more important things to do -- like clip my fingernails.

Football highlights are worth watching. Baseball highlights are not.

[Maven]

8. All XX Super Bowls haven't produced as many classic games as either pennant playoff did in 1986.

I will never - and I mean NEVER - forgive Roger Clemens for hitting Wally Joyner during the 1986 playoffs.

On another note, I still remember being 14 years old, and my father took me to my very first (and so far, only) World Series game. It was the first game of the 1974 series - Oakland A's vs. the L.A. Dodgers. We were rooting for Oakland because my father, who grew up in Brighton Beach, never forgave the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn.

I still vividly remember that they brought out Roy Campanella to throw out the first ball. I remember it because that was the first time I ever saw my father weep.

Maven
I am an Angels fan. I know suffering.

[iranger]

"You need more than testosterone to be a manly man, my friend."

Who said that was all that was required? But its a start. Oh yeah....poet....schmoet. All the poets I know sit around in coffee shots listening to bad impersonations of Dylan while sipping latte's and complaining about the Evil capitilists males who run things. As if their disdain for capitalism offered anything more than a pathetic joke to excuse their utter failure as men.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

One reason why football is better than baseball....Kurt Warner!

And another - The Great Number 4, Mr. Favre!

[AntiScumbag]

You never see football players trotting -- unless the play is over

oh, really?

i'll ignore the fact that trotting the bases is after the result of the play is known and unchangeable, and confine this to loafing BEFORE the play is over

the worst offender being the overrated and overpaid randy moss, who apparently can't be bothered to actually run his route consistently when he knows he's not the primary, despite the best efforts of the incredibly hard-working chris carter to convince him otherwise

of course, he's better than he used to be, last year he often couldn't be bothered to do anything but mope around the line of scrimmage if his number wasn't called

he made the abovementioned fat linemen, some of whom couldn't run if they had to, look energetic

[BluesDuke]

Lots of close plays at third base and home? Then I suggest they put them in the highlights. How long am I supposed to sit and watch guys trotting around the bases?

This is why I usually recommend watching the game and not just SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight. You want more close plays at third and home on the highlights, take it up with ESPN. You want to watch a game, then watch the game. The whole game. Nothing but the game. And, while you're at it, consider that since players won't be hitting home runs every time they bat (not even Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa can do that), it does pay to conserve energy for when the legs might really be needed, like running down a long fly ball that you could turn into an out rather than an extra base hit; or, for taking that extra base on a long enough line drive.

The recent proclivities toward more home runs notwithstanding, the home run isn't the only thing you will see during a baseball game. (You will, though, see an awful lot of guys going on their ass if they start running like the wind on home runs - pitchers still don't like to be shown up, and if there's one thing which shows a pitcher up even more nastily than a trot around the bases on a homer, it's a rat-race around the bases on a homer.)

[BluesDuke]

I'll give him some poetry:

I think that I shall never see
a tree so lovely as born to be
a Louisville Slugger!

[Maven]

Football highlights are worth watching. Baseball highlights are not.

From The Sporting News' "Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments":

"BASEBALL has moments. Football has drives, basketball has runs, hockey has ... I dunno what hockey has. But I know this: Baseball has moments.

"Moments of suspense.

"Followed by moments when everything changes.

. . . .

"Basketball is jazz. Football is bombs blowin' up. Baseball is silence--until lightning strikes and all hell breaks loose, setting our brains on fire. (Scientists say vivid memories are the result of adrenaline rushes that juice up the brain's ability to absorb events. That, or your brain's on fire.)"

Maven

[AntiScumbag]

between the shoulders and the knees

i agree

but, most of these umps seem to make up for it by seeing home plate as being something over 3 feet wide

being severely orientation-challenged is apparently now a requirement for the job

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

How can you stand the marching bands? The gayest thing of all. Oh, the horror...

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Well, you've got a point there...I personally think any league that can't be bothered to have a team in the 2nd largest US city doesn't deserve to be watched, and it also seems like a chore to find a football fan with a triple digit IQ, but that being said, you are right. For all its faults, the NFL is a more dynamic league where random events are far more influential in the outcome of the season (only 16 games fer cryin' out loud), but I look at recent history and see the 49er's and the Cowboys being far too dominant for far too long also.

Besides, football players need to get out there and start playing more than, say, once per week. With humongous team rosters filled with specialists, I don't see why the league can't play more than 16 games before the postseason.

[poet]

Gee, you guys sure know how to hurt a guy's feelings.

[RussP]

In football, many of the highlights occur when the game is not even on the line. The action itself is the highlight.

In baseball, there is little action, and highlights are usually highlights only because their effect on the game, as your post seems to imply. The action itself is nothing special, in other words.

Heck, most of the highlights are homeruns. A homerun swing lasts about two seconds, and if you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all. Then the hitter trots casually around the bases. It can't compare to a broken-play scramble by Steve Young, each of which is a something different.

[2Trievers]

I have no intention of starting a death match.

You are BOTH right. How's that?

[billbears]

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

Knowing I'll get flamed for this, however this has to be amended or changed. MNF is so much better with Dennis Miller's wit than having to listen to the idiocy of Michaels and Fouts

[upchuck]

"I see," said the blind man. Sorry.