OT: "The Best Sport"
 

ESPN has something of a roundtable discussion posted on page 2, and it's an entertaining read:

http://msn.espn.go.com/page2/s/bloc/031126.html

That said, if I didn't believe Jim Caple might just be the best sportswriter around before I read that article, I sure do now. The man has a way with words I only wish I could dream of having. Geez.

Caple is a fine writer, but it takes his style of puffery to try to make baseball out to be "the best sport." Note that nobody musing lavishly about baseball ever says anything along the lines of:

- it's fun to watch

- it's interesting

- it's exciting

No, the baseball muses reflect on various single moments from the glorious history of the national pasttime, and they amble on about this big play or that big play that happened some long-ago era. About Marilyn and Joe -- like that has anything to do with modern baseball. It's all romance.

Take your romance - football is king, period. In football, every game counts. In football, there are easily more exciting individual plays in any one game than in a whole week of baseball. There's more strategy and decision-making. There are more people making a difference at any given time -- it's a true team sport.

The only reason that an article like this is worth printing is that it gives cleevr sportswriters a chance to try to refute the obvious. That makes for entrtaining reading, but usually the obvious is obvious for a good reason.

Football is king. All hail the king.

I actually personally do find baseball fun to watch, interesting and exciting on the whole. I do not find every game exciting, some are rather boring. I feel that way about any sport though.

I never felt though that I had to force my enjoyment of baseball upon others or say if others do not find it fun to watch they are nuts.. I simply think that different people have different enjoyments.

I happen to go to anywhere from 20-40 baseball games a year in person, and nearly watch another 200+ games a year thanks to my Dish, and that is just because I love it, and always have.

I don't really have a huge point here, I agree that football is the model right now of how every professional sport league should be run. They have done an excellent job and have the highest level of following right now. I just wanted to state that its not unusual to find those that still prefer baseball for their own personal tastes.

Baseball is about suspense, the quiet leading up to those huge moments. I enjoy reading about and following baseball more.

But nothing can top Sunday during football season.

As far as excitement, personal interest and fun... it's all personal preference... I mean some people even find tennis fun and exciting...


But trying to argue Baseball is better because its more pure, or cause it has more kids runnning around in the stands is stupid.



Football on a whole has the highest public interest, and is currently the most profitable and well ran.


Doesn't mean you have to like it though.

It's really apples and oranges.

But I'd rather watch a bad baseball game than a bad football game. I'd also rather watcha a great baseball game than a great football game.

Where baseball loses out to football is the 60% or so games in-between.

And I think it's safe to say I am the only one who thinks there is no game as beautiful to watch than basketball in its purest form.

But I'll say it anyway.

Well, that rules out the NBA then, if you're looking for pure form. :)

It's a shame that the NHL doesn't translate well to the TV, because it's the greatest live sport in the world.

I've never understood why more people don't take to the NHL, it's got everything they want in other sports (Speed, Fights, Goals, Individual Skill, Star Power and a kick ass post-season), but people just aren't feeling it.

The theory that there's more strategy and decision-making in football than baseball is false.

You can't say for sure which one has "more" because they're so different. Baseball is exciting and fun to watch for many people. The idea that someone can try to use so-called objective arguments to prove which sport is better is ridiculous. It's personal preference, just the same as nearly all "which is better" arguments.

For me, I enjoy watching football more. I enjoyed playing baseball more. And I enjoy analyzing and studying the two sports about the same as each other. They are such incredibly different beasts when it comes to analysis that it allows that kind of equality of enjoyment. As I stated on another thread, football is a game played in parallel and baseball is a game played in series. Totally different animals.

I agree with the above poster that basketball is a wonderful sport by design. Of course, I agree with the other poster that NBA basketball is not that wonderful sport.

WWE (neé WWF) : Greco-Roman Wrestling : : NBA : Basketball

On TV, give me football.

On the radio, give me baseball.

Live, give me hockey.

Basketball, yawn.

That sums it up perfectly for me.

I agree with the statement. Watching a game from the early 80's is nothing short of pure bliss. High scores, exciting games, fluid movement, better officiating, positional game instead of a strength one, fast breaks. . .

Essentially what a Nuggets, Kings or Mavericks game looks like now. If only one of those three could pull off a title and have some teams play "copycat"

As for baseball, the drama has nothing on an OT playoff hockey game.

Football is the most exciting of the four without question IMO.

TroyF

How is it false? A decision for 11 players is made by the coach on every play. There are flat-out more decisions to be made in a football game, case closed.

It's the exact same reason you posted...the NHL on TV doesn't capture a fraction of what it's like to be there live. I go to my fair share of Braves, Hawks, Thrashers, and Falcons games each year, and the best ones to see live is are the Thrashers, by far. But TV just doesn't show all the action on the ice...

Probably because if you're a good coach, there aren't really 11 decisions being made because groups of players have to have their instructions synchronized or else the entire play is screwed up.

I'd imagine the success rate of a defense or offense that calls plays by making individual decisions for the responsibility of each 11 players would be pretty low.

Baseball has more history and tradition than any other professional sport in America, it's not even close.

When it comes down to the basics, baseball is a 1v1 matchup. Football is a team oriented game and the NBA has ended up being a 1v1 matchup.

What I don't like about the NFL is too much parity. I would fathom that the Pittsburgh Steelers have run one of the best organizations since the introduction of free agency but eventually even they have had to start over. It's great for fans of every team because you always have a respectable chance to do something every season with proper organization but I do miss being able to name 4 or 5 teams that will be great for the next 5 years, it's impossible.

MLB unfortunately is heading down that same road.

Ugh, I hope not, Purple.

Parity is the reason I'm losing interest in NFL football. From week to week there is very little consistency. It reminds me of when I was 10 years old and made up my first dice football game. I had no concept of probability and every team had the exact same chance of beating each other. It stunk.

If baseball EVER goes to a HARD salary cap, I'll freak. I hate professional basketball (though I love college), but at least you can keep your good players with the soft cap and develop an identity. I admit that the current financial situation for baseball isn't the optimum, but I love going into a year knowing who's good, who's bad, and that there will be a few suprises. Right now, football is a complete toss up of mediocrity vs. mediocrity.

I don't think MLB needs a hard cap. What it needs is every single penny of revenue-sharing going to improve the teams they go to instead of their own commissioner pocketing away half of his team's for "expenses" without penalty. And probably a revision of the entire process for equalization.

It doesn't even all need to go to free agents, even upgrading the rest of the organization such as minor league systems and scouting departments would be a good start.

A new commissioner would be a better start.

Wow. Comparing a team (Nuggets) shooting 39% and averaging 94 points a game to teams of the 80's. A bit of a stretch, dont you think?

And there was another style of play in the 80's. You may have watched the Lakers play the Celtics a few times or the Pistons.

It still doesn't dismiss the fact that the decisions on what these 11 players do were made in advance. Still, coaches change blocking assignments mid-game, receivers have options on some routes (depending on the defense). There are simply many more moving parts than in baseball.

You can downplay the level of strategy in football if you'd like, but I'd love to see anyone here put forth a convincing argument on how baseball is as or more complex than football. There's simply no comparison.

Every pitch is called on tendencies, the fielders are positioned on tendences, deciding when to pitchhit, pitchrun, pull your starter, bunt, swing away, sacrifice, hit-and-run, steal a base, which reliever to use when, your batting order, your rotation, when to give a guy a rest, when to call up someone from your minor league system.

so we're now extending the strategy of the game to out-of-game roster management?

cthomer -

You are simply making a biased argument with only one supportive statement so far, that there are more moving parts in football. HornedFrog pointed out some of many strategy points in baseball, of which many occur on every play. Also, baseball differs from football in that when you pull a player out of the lineup, he's done for the game. That alone requires a level of strategy in player substitution that football doesn't.

And nobody is downplaying the level of strategy in football. The fact that this debate is happening on this board should make it obvious that we are all very interested in football strategy. You and QuikSand are the only two who downplayed the level of strategy in any sport, and that was baseball.

Every sport has in-game adjustments, and the idea that receivers change their routes based on defensive looks is easily balanced by baserunning situations in baseball. There are a million more examples of football strategy that can be counter-balanced by a million more examples of baseball strategy and vice versa.

scratch the last 3 and they are all in-game strategy. Keep in mind though not every game in baseball is as equally important as football because it is much more of a marathon though not as physical.

HornedFrog Purple -

Don't grant lineup decisions as out-of-game. It isn't baseball's fault that football allows unlimited lineup changes. ;)

I have not made a single remark attacking baseball strategy, I've only questioned those who claim it superior to football. Baseball involves strategy, there is no denying that.

My argument, simply stated:
In baseball, we're talking about what 9 guys are doing in relation to 1 batter (or at most 1 batter and 3 base runners). In football, you are either proactively or reactively coaching 11 players on what to do against 11 active opponents.

Counter-point to the baseball substitution argument:
You have no idea what 11 players you will be facing on any given play in football. While you can substitue freely, so can the opposing team. If anything, there is a greater complexity there.

I know, really my point was that looking ahead is an important part of baseball. Rotation I would believe is important because you are trying to give yourself the best chance to win every series which is what baseball is really more based on than every game as football is. It all adds up to a lot of strategy as much as football in my opinion. Maybe it's more "cerebral" but it's still strategy.

Not really. Defensive substitutions are almost exclusively made in reaction to visual confirmation of the offensive substitutions. In fact, they added a rule outlawing 12 players in a huddle specifically to allow the defense to know exactly what 11 players they will be facing on any given play in football.

And the entire argument revolving around how many players are on the field at one time is hollow to me. Following that theory to its logical extreme, all I have to do is invent a game with 13 players on the field at a time and I now have a better game than football as far as in-game strategy is concerned. And you're going to have a hard time convincing me that soccer is as in-game strategy intensive as football.

edit - I hear soccer managers being praised as geniuses for solitary in-game adjustments made one time.

To me, baseball is really just a series of one on one matchups dressed up as a team sport. People like to complicate it, but it seems to really break down to be a much simpler game because of that to the point where its really a game of expectations (like poker). If I bat playerA against pitcherB in situationC, my expected payoff is x runs, etc... I think because of that the strategy has to be much simpler than a true team sport where you have to deal with so many extra variables just because its a cooperative effort...

Personally I really like how football has clearly defined roles and specializations. I like how there are nearly infinite situations because of all the variables (field position, time, personel packages, plays, down, distance, 11 players vs 11 players, etc, etc). I love how football is a much harder game to beat statistically (I'd love to see a winshares system for football!). I love the short schedule and the resulting fact that nearly every game is an event and they're all televised. I love the salary cap structure and how it perfectly balances flexibility and rigidity. I love how drafted players can make a difference right away instead of sitting in the minor leagues for several years and how we get to hear about future players and look foward to them while they play in college... basically I love everything about football. :)

I agree and have stated the same regarding baseball being a game played in series. However, I don't think the quantifiability of probability in baseball makes it simpler. Just different. Both sports are wonderful to follow.

Baseball is a beautiful sport.

Football is boxing with a ball.

I like football, but baseball is art and football is spectacle. I prefer art.

yeah, David Wells is a thing of beauty.

Also football in a general way is based on probability. What play to call in your playbook that you think will succeed against the other team based on watching film and previous encounters. What matchup you think will work. Whether to draw up a play during the week for that specific team based on tendencies. Some plays you don't even bother to run against certain teams because you don't think they will work. Defenses try to exploit weaknesses based on probability of success.

I don't think either is vastly superior in strategy they just differ.

I could live without (and barely miss) any sport except football. College b-ball is nice, but I'll take football over it.

i love baseball

i don't find it boring or slow or whatever. I watched nearly every single Red Sox game last year and listened to the ones i couldn't watch on the radio. I watched whatever other games where on when the Red Sox had the day off.

During football season i'll watch the Patriots, and root for them. But i'm always on ESPN.com or rotoworld.com or reading the Boston Globe trying to figure out what's going on with the Red Sox and tracking down any rumors. I'm counting down the days until spring training starts. Football just gives me something to have on the TV while i read my book on sunday

Ugly players do not ruin a sport.

And a Wells curve (although not Zito-esque) is beautiful when you see it dive and Nomar's knees buckle.

though it's not nearly as beautiful as when he hangs one and Nomar puts it on Landsdowne St. :D

The sport of baseball is great. MLB sucks royal a$$.

For a live event, I prefer golf.

It really depends what sport you grown up with, and to which sport you have an emotional investment.

I just don't see where there is a ton of strategy in baseball, on a per-pitch level. I think this is where some people argue football has more strategy, and then the baseball fans start arguing inning-to-inning strategy and including things like roster changes and such.

On any given play, there is more strategy involved in football than on any given pitch in baseball. In general.

I'll agree that baseball does have a lot of strategy throughout the season, but when you look at the sports on their most basic level, a single play for football and a single pitch for baseball, I don't see how you can compare the two. So much in football depends on the coach's style, his gameplan, how he sets up his plays and what formations he uses, his tendancies in doing dozens of different things. What's the West-Coast offense equivilant in baseball? Do they have a defensive equivilent to the Cover 2? 46? Do different managers mean that much in a per pitch basis?

On the other hand, baseball has more strategy in the roster management departent. There are more trades in baseball (a LOT more), you have to set up pitcher rotations, decide which players to play from game to game (in football, you always play who you think your best players are), decide who to call up from the minors or who to send down (no football minor league), etc. This is where it seems like a manager makes most influence.

So I've always looked at it like this. Football has more in game strategy, baseball has more out of game strategy. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that...

There is a tremendous amount of strategy on a per pitch basis in baseball. The majority of that strategy is determined defensively by the pitcher and catcher without managerial input in most cases. In determining what pitch to throw the battery can and will consider the last pitch thrown, how the batter has looked against each pitch that game, that at-bat, against different pitchers, where the batter is set up in the box, the weather (yes, sometimes the weather), the sequence of pitches thrown to that batter in his last plate appearance, the particular configuration of the park they're playing in, and many other aspects.

That doesn't sound like a lot compared to any given play for football.

Nobody's saying there isn't strategy involved with baseball. At least, all I'm saying is that on any given play, there is a lot more to do in football than in baseball. All of what you said could also describe how a QB decides where to throw the ball and how he's going to throw it. The difference is that in football, you also have an offensive line, using one of several protection schemes, trying to keep out pass rushers, all of which have a different assignment and technique on how to get passed the line and get to the QB. You also have a couple of receivers, as many as five, all running routes against a defense that could be in one of many different coverage schemes.

No one is saying that baseball is a "simple" game or that it doesn't have a lot of strategy. I just see a lot more strategy per play in football than I see per pitch in baseball.

I probably enjoy baseball slightly more than football, but I feel I understand each game equally well. So I asked myself this question, Which sport do I feel I could coach better? The answer is easily baseball. There are a ton of decisions to be made, but none of them are all that complex. In a football game I would be lost trying to adjust my team based on the other one. The decisions are probably fewer but so much more complex.

dola

thinking about it more, what baseball has going for it is the once in a season BIG DECISIONS that are second guessed for decades to come. See Grady Little and Pedro Martinez. Some of the decisions can become so monumental that they become a parat of the sport's lore. Football seldom has that because you just go with who you have. The only thing that could come up is going for it on fourth down or kicking the FG or whatever.

OK, I guess you could say I am squarely on the fence on this one. :)

Yeah, actually I did watch the Lakers play the Celtics a few times in the early 80's.

Remember the 83/84 series?

Game 1 - 115 - 109 Lakers
Game 2 - 124 - 101 Celtics
Game 3 - 137-104 Lakers
Game 4 - 129 - 125 Celtics
Game 5 - 121 - 103 Celtics
Game 6 - 119 - 108 Lakers
Game 7 - 111 - 1-2 Celtics

None of the games went into OT. Seven consecutive finals games with BOTH teams being in the 100's. The two teams repeated this a year later. In 86/87 they played a 6 game series with a team only missing triple digits one time. (the Lakers scored 93 in the final game) That series had a 126-113 REGULATION game of basketball.

Even the Pistons, the defensive geniuses that they were, scored under 100 points in a finals game one time in their two championship years. (9 games) They held the other team under 100 3 times in the 9 games and never held anyone under 90. Even if we don't get into the points arguement you have the style, that leads me to. . .

As for the Nuggets, don't let the shooting % or the overall numbers fool you. As it is, they are 7th in the NBA in points per game. They've hit the 100 point barrier in 6 of the past 9 games.

They've also shot the ball a ton better in the past 7 or 8 games.

The biggest thing is that they are running up and down the floor. The Nugs and Mavs hooked up twice this past week and put on a show. The games were FUN to watch.

They may lose 50 in a row. They certainly aren't as good as their 10-6 record indicates. They ARE trying to get back to the basketball of old.

The Lakers are moving the ball more this year than in the past. I hope they keep it up. Yet I know in the playoffs, when it really counts, they'll drop it into Shaq or Malone for a few shoulder drops when they need a call. It's the NBA of the 90's/2000's afterall. . .

TroyF

Thats what I love about you Troy. You use numbers to discredit what I say and follow it up by saying dont use the numbers when looking at the Nuggets.

;)

edited to add smiley to be clear that I'm not in confrontation mode. I ate spicy curried chicken tonight so I dont have it in me.

Not in confrontation mode either. . . but at least take what I said into context. I did say (stress in fact) in my statements leading to the Nuggets it wasn't all about what the final score was, but the style of the game. I also showed pretty clearly that the Nuggets are playing as good of offense as any team in basketball over their past 9 games no matter what numbers you want to look at. Considering that nearly 70% of the roster is new, I'm gonna throw out the first five or six games. If you want to believe they are the same, poor shooting team of the first week and a half of the season. . . I'll disagree and we can find out who is right as the season progresses.

TroyF

Yer right...but, he wouldn't even turn heads in a football locker room...how sad is that???

:p

See, I think the same holds true in my Celtics / Pistons comparison. Its about the tempo they played. They wanted to turn the game into a half court game. They didnt want to run with the Lakers.

I agree that the Nuggets are much improved. I also think the Lakers arent nearly the team they were last year, where all they did was pound the ball into Shaq. Payton presses the tempo and, as you mentioned, there is much more ball movement. We'll see at the end of the year how much it still holds.