Jayson Stark: Why MLB is better than NFL

No sport has true parity, but NFL is arguably the best.Baseball is probably behind it. Hockey and basketball seem to be dynasty sports where you can more or less pick the teams who'll play in the conference championship game. This is the first year that I think most would have picked the conference champion contenders. Last year no one would have picked the Ravens, heck some wouldn't have picked the Falcons. In baseball this year odds are you can slot 4 NL teams in the playoffs, Braves, Nats, Dodgers, and Cardinals. Unless major injuries set in they should take up 4 spots, in the AL Tigers, A's, Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays will be your main teams in the mix.

In the NFL rarely can you just totally write off a team to start a season. Jaguars being that.
 
MLB needs to get their shat together. The lack of blacks playing baseball is absurd, especially when compared to the NFL and NBA. Now that we have all this concussion crap going around, MLB needs to try and recruit young black athletes away from football. It should be an easy sell. Look at all the potential scholarships. Consider the potential money for 18 year olds right out of high school.
 
zitothebrave said:
No sport has true parity, but NFL is arguably the best.Baseball is probably behind it. Hockey and basketball seem to be dynasty sports where you can more or less pick the teams who'll play in the conference championship game. This is the first year that I think most would have picked the conference champion contenders. Last year no one would have picked the Ravens, heck some wouldn't have picked the Falcons. In baseball this year odds are you can slot 4 NL teams in the playoffs, Braves, Nats, Dodgers, and Cardinals. Unless major injuries set in they should take up 4 spots, in the AL Tigers, A's, Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays will be your main teams in the mix.

In the NFL rarely can you just totally write off a team to start a season. Jaguars being that.
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NHL Stanley Cup participants and seeds since the lockout:

06: 2 over 8
07: 2 over 4
08: 1 over 2
09: 4 over 2
10: 2 over 7
11: 3 over 1
12: 8 over 6
13: 1 over 4

Only 3/16 #1 seeds even made it to the Finals. 7 out of the 16 didn't win their division (though only 2 of those won).
 
Hockey has the same top teams in the top spots pretty much every year. Of course some crazy seasons happen cause playoffs are a crap shoot, but when was the last time the Penguins, Bruins, Blackhawks, etc. have not been to the playoffs. The top teams are generally the top teams.
 
weso1 said:
MLB needs to get their shat together. The lack of blacks playing baseball is absurd, especially when compared to the NFL and NBA. Now that we have all this concussion crap going around, MLB needs to try and recruit young black athletes away from football. It should be an easy sell. Look at all the potential scholarships. Consider the potential money for 18 year olds right out of high school.[/

Scholarships? Baseball teams are allowed 11.5 scholarships. That's not a lot.
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Krgrecw said:
weso1 said:
MLB needs to get their shat together. The lack of blacks playing baseball is absurd, especially when compared to the NFL and NBA. Now that we have all this concussion crap going around, MLB needs to try and recruit young black athletes away from football. It should be an easy sell. Look at all the potential scholarships. Consider the potential money for 18 year olds right out of high school.[/

Scholarships? Baseball teams are allowed 11.5 scholarships. That's not a lot.
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Baseball doesn't need scholarships, you don't have to go to school like you do for the NBA and NFL.

Though I've said it a lot that soccer teams should be heavily invested in programs to try to weed out the kids who aren't quite big enough for the NFL or NBA ahead of time and try to get some of the great athletes we have playing a game where they'll have plenty of chances to earn money and boost our national skill.
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zitothebrave said:
Hockey has the same top teams in the top spots pretty much every year. Of course some crazy seasons happen cause playoffs are a crap shoot, but when was the last time the Penguins, Bruins, Blackhawks, etc. have not been to the playoffs. The top teams are generally the top teams.
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I think that's somewhat a function of 16/30 making the playoffs combined with several franchises being perpetually mismanaged. I'm not sure the same thing doesn't happen in the NFL anyways w/ Team Peyton, Patriots, Packers, Steelers, etc. generally making it barring catastrophe.
 
There is some truth to that but the increased playoff spot allows what you described up top with the seeds happening. Don't get me wrong, the NFL has some teams way up top like the Pats, Peyton, Packers, etc. they have a healthy amount of transition. At least 5 teams a season. Don't get me wrong, no sport has real parity, I'm not gonna debate that teams with smart front offices and especially some luck (Colts getting Luck after Peyton goes down for a season being a prime example) generally win more than poorly run teams in any sport, but I can't think of the last time i've looked at a hockey standing and Pitt hasn't beena top seed. Of course the NBA is the worst about it, but that's neither here nor there.
 
zitothebrave said:
Krgrecw said:
Baseball doesn't need scholarships, you don't have to go to school like you do for the NBA and NFL.

Though I've said it a lot that soccer teams should be heavily invested in programs to try to weed out the kids who aren't quite big enough for the NFL or NBA ahead of time and try to get some of the great athletes we have playing a game where they'll have plenty of chances to earn money and boost our national skill.
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Baseball does need scholarships if People want more blacks in mlb.
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Why? You can go play professionally out of high school, all you have to do for your marketing is point to BJ Upton, Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, etc. If you want to go to school, your major league team can provide you with education funding to go to school in your free time. Part of the problem with baseball and why it doesn't do too well with getting black players is they don't care. It's cheaper for them to build academies in the dominican or other latin american dirt poor countries that attract their top athletes who they pay nothing to and then groom them, than it is to sponsor inner city baseball which may or may not yield positive results. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to poach a top athlete to baseball, Jason is really the only American baseball player I can think of off the top of my head who's athletic enough and big enough to play at the highest levels in basketball and football. But baseball found it's niche in an untapped market by any other professional sport except for soccer, which really isn't that big of a draw in the dominican, just makes picking from south and central american countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, etc. tougher.
 
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