Baseball vs. Football

bravesnumberone

bravesnumberone

Well-known member
Probably already been a thread about this and hundreds of articles, but I was watching PTI on ESPN a few minutes ago, and Wilbon started off the segment referring to baseball as the "former" national past-time.

You hear this argument a lot as baseball slips further behind football and now basketball in TV ratings, but I think too many people rely on those ratings to fit their dialogue. Football is more of a pleasant viewing television experience for the average sports fans, while I think most people would rather be at a baseball game.

Another point brought up is how the sport has largely disappeared from urban neighborhoods.

But the whole thing about baseball being "boring to watch" is just weak BS and a lack of understanding of the nuances of the sport.

I love both. They're probably the only two sports I'm passionate about with basketball and soccer way off in the distance.

I just don't see where the cultural significance of baseball has declined.

Thoughts?
 
Baseball has missed out on the urban neighborhoods for sure. I mean MLB clubs should be spending thousands getting these leagues up and running so that they could potentially have the next Griffey or Bonds or Mays or Aaron. That's what the NFL did and look at the payoff for them. Given the guaranteed money, and allure of going pro out of school, I think the selling aspect to parents isn't hard, especially when you compare to the NBA (smaller number of teams with very small rosters) and the NFL (head injuries) baseball seems like a way smarter athletic route to take.

I place the same concerns on the head of US Soccer, they should be scouting every camp in basketball and football for the guys who won't cut it and convince them to make the switch or at least try spring soccer as a fallback if they don't make it for basketball ro football.
 
Bj1133 said:
Compared to basketball/football, I think those statements are true.
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Baseball games are shorter, on average, than both basketball and football games. Some baseball games take even less than 2 hours if it's a pitchers duel.

As far as consistent "action" or plays that get the crowd excited, I could understand that basketball and football are more geared toward the casual fan looking for those typr of things to keep their interest. But for anyone that understands baseball, I think it's exciting waiting on every pitch, especially in a close game.
 
The reason it's not in urban neighborhoods is because of the cost to play.

Soccer is dominant in the 3rd world because you really just need any ball and imagination to play anywhere. Football you can play with like 6 kids only on the street. Basketball you really only need yourself. Baseball? Need a big field, gloves, a bat, and if someone hits the ball hard you have to go chase it down somewhere.

It's part of the same reason tennis is dying, and less younger blacks are playing tennis in this country. A stigma that it's a rich white man's game. If you want to play tennis, it's not that expensive. But if you want to play it seriously and compete as a kid it does get somewhat costly.
 
Carp said:
Baseball games are shorter, on average, than both basketball and football games. Some baseball games take even less than 2 hours if it's a pitchers duel.

As far as consistent "action" or plays that get the crowd excited, I could understand that basketball and football are more geared toward the casual fan looking for those typr of things to keep their interest. But for anyone that understands baseball, I think it's exciting waiting on every pitch, especially in a close game.
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NFL is mostly non-action. I forget the stat but it's quite insane the amount of downtime. And if you think logically, you'd realize it. Basketball has more action than either, won't argue against that.
 
The Don said:
The reason it's not in urban neighborhoods is because of the cost to play.

Soccer is dominant in the 3rd world because you really just need any ball and imagination to play anywhere. Football you can play with like 6 kids only on the street. Basketball you really only need yourself. Baseball? Need a big field, gloves, a bat, and if someone hits the ball hard you have to go chase it down somewhere.

It's part of the same reason tennis is dying, and less younger blacks are playing tennis in this country. A stigma that it's a rich white man's game. If you want to play tennis, it's not that expensive. But if you want to play it seriously and compete as a kid it does get somewhat costly.
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As I said, MLB could largely rectify that with a pretty small amount of money. Invest in like 2 fields per major city and tons of equipment, your then yearly fee is pretty small (jerseys and some new balls and maybe a glove or bat) if that nets you one Griffey or even Upton per city, you made your money back 10 fold.
 
The Don said:
The reason it's not in urban neighborhoods is because of the cost to play.

Soccer is dominant in the 3rd world because you really just need any ball and imagination to play anywhere. Football you can play with like 6 kids only on the street. Basketball you really only need yourself. Baseball? Need a big field, gloves, a bat, and if someone hits the ball hard you have to go chase it down somewhere.

It's part of the same reason tennis is dying, and less younger blacks are playing tennis in this country. A stigma that it's a rich white man's game. If you want to play tennis, it's not that expensive. But if you want to play it seriously and compete as a kid it does get somewhat costly.
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Yes and no. Kids in the third world play baseball with sticks. Kids grew up playing the same way in inner cities. But yeah still the actual bats and gloves and equipment are ridiculously expensive and access to travel teams which is really what you need now to have a competitive edge is ridiculous. I'm still not sure this is the No. 1 reason for the sport's decline though. I think it has a lot to do with our entire culture of being pressed for time, craving immediate action (scoring in the sports world) and the nature of today's sports media in general.
 
bravesnumberone said:
Yes and no. Kids in the third world play baseball with sticks. Kids grew up playing the same way in inner cities. But yeah still the actual bats and gloves and equipment are ridiculously expensive and access to travel teams which is really what you need now to have a competitive edge is ridiculous. I'm still not sure this is the No. 1 reason for the sport's decline though. I think it has a lot to do with our entire culture of being pressed for time, craving immediate action (scoring in the sports world) and the nature of today's sports media in general.
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I know kids in third world play baseball with sticks, but that's mainly in places like the Dominican and Venezuela where baseball popularity exceeds soccer.

I think the travel teams hurt poor black youth more than anything. Costs money to travel. Should just be preparing these kids for high school baseball where the school covers most of hte costs to play.
 
The Don said:
I know kids in third world play baseball with sticks, but that's mainly in places like the Dominican and Venezuela where baseball popularity exceeds soccer.

I think the travel teams hurt poor black youth more than anything. Costs money to travel. Should just be preparing these kids for high school baseball where the school covers most of hte costs to play.
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That and communities need to invest more resources in recreation departments. Might help with some crime issues too.
 
zitothebrave said:
As I said, MLB could largely rectify that with a pretty small amount of money. Invest in like 2 fields per major city and tons of equipment, your then yearly fee is pretty small (jerseys and some new balls and maybe a glove or bat) if that nets you one Griffey or even Upton per city, you made your money back 10 fold.
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Did Griffey or Upton need a program like this to become productive major leaguers?

did David price?
 
Krgrecw said:
Did Griffey or Upton need a program like this?
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NOpe. Griffey was the son of a player. Uptons grew up in a town that happened to be part of an amazing AAU section that brought in players like Wright, Zimmerman, Cuddyer, and Reynolds. We can't rely on people happening to be in a great area for baseball.
 
Just heard someone who called into a local radio show and complained that last nights game was too long and nothing exciting happened. The talk show host who routinely complains about baseball was in total agreement. What an idiot.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Just heard someone who called into a local radio show and complained that last nights game was too long and nothing exciting happened. The talk show host who routinely complains about baseball was in total agreement. What an idiot.
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It was baseball at its best. The game had pretty much everything a real sports fan should want. Not like it was an 11-0 clunker.
 
bravesnumberone said:
It was baseball at its best. The game had pretty much everything a real sports fan should want. Not like it was an 11-0 clunker.
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To me the score of a game doesn't matter. What matters are the battles within the war. I found the Germany/Brazil game to be super boring. It was chockfull of goals but the battles were bad. It was the equivalent of watching top flight college teams play a division 2 school. It's just not pretty or enjoyable.

Now a game that ends nil-nil but has tons of action amazing buildup and great defense, that's something I can get behind. Give me quality over quantity of points. That's why I stopped watchign the NBA for the most part. It's switched from being a sport that had amazing individual and team battles to see who can run down the court and dunk the fastest.
 
CyYoung31 said:
"Baseball games are too long" and "there's not enough action" are my favorite fallacies when people argue against baseball.
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Baseball is definitely too long. It's not a problem that can be fixed, but it keeps me from watching games.

Seriously, the World Series was almost 6 hours last night. The only reason I watched the whole game was because I live on the West Coast. There isn't another sport in the world that could face that issue.

CyYoung31 said:
Just heard someone who called into a local radio show and complained that last nights game was too long and nothing exciting happened. The talk show host who routinely complains about baseball was in total agreement. What an idiot.
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The game was definitely exciting. It was also too long. At work today most of my coworkers turned the game off before the game ended. Not because they didn't want to watch, but a lot of people can't commit themselves to six hours.

I don't understand why baseball fans can't admit that this is an issue.
 
zitothebrave said:
NFL is mostly non-action. I forget the stat but it's quite insane the amount of downtime. And if you think logically, you'd realize it. Basketball has more action than either, won't argue against that.
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The NFL has the benefit of only be played on Sunday (basically). It's a lot easier to commit yourself to 3.5 hours to watching a game if its Sunday morning and you don't have to worry about turning the game off to go to bed on time.
 
chop2chip said:
Baseball is definitely too long. It's not a problem that can be fixed, but it keeps me from watching games.

Seriously, the World Series was almost 6 hours last night. The only reason I watched the whole game was because I live on the West Coast. There isn't another sport in the world that could face that issue.
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Average length of a baseball game is about 3 hours. Same basic length as an NFL game. Actually shorter.

To me the best bang for buck of on field action is soccer. You get an hour and a half or so of play in under 2 hours. NBA is about 2 and a half hours for 60 minutes of action. NHL is a bit worse for about the same amount of time.

People need to realize how much more awesome overall soccer is than American sports and hopefully we'll adjust our commercial times from there to speed everything up. Because commercial times slow everything down.
 
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