Marc’s had his panties in a bunch about baseball since he played on King’s Knights when he was 12 years old. Here are my top 10 reasons why baseball is awesome:
10. Okay baseball can be a bit boring, but not only is it a sport, it is a difficult sport. They, in this case ESPN, ranked baseball ninth in degree of difficulty. Of note boxing was ranked the most difficult and fishing the least difficult. Ironic Dad’s favorite sport the most difficult, and Ed’s the least…but that’s a whole other thread.
9. If scoring is a necessary requirement of sport, then you can throw out a number of fan favorites including the most popular sport in the world(soccer) and one of Marc’s loves hockey. Go FIFA World Cup, coming to a TV near you beginning June 11th!
8. If you did a comparison of TV time v. actual playing time I don’t think you would find the ratio to be drastically different from other sports such as golf or even hockey.
7. Talk about limited action, a hockey player typically can’t stay on the ice for more than 2 minutes at a time. If they get caught in a bad position and can’t execute a shift change they start to wilt. People think hockey players are tough, what a bunch of sissies.
6. There are guys in every team sport that make millions and rarely if ever play. That’s not unique to baseball.
5. The highest paid people in any organization are “overpaid” relative to each pitch they throw, home run they hit, touchdown they score, or decision they make. The reason they get paid so much is if you put any normal individual in their role you would get no hits, no touchdowns, and a company in financial ruin almost immediately. The bottom line is, take a deep breath…they deserve it! How many people would buy that Yankees jersey or tune into the Cubs game then?
4. If you want to read an interesting perspective about highly paid people, read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. A unique perspective on what makes a person an expert.
3. That hot dog isn’t $7 because of the highly paid athletes, and hot dogs don’t pay their salaries. TV and radio broadcast rights and logo apparel and gear pay for salaries. The reason hot dogs are $7 is because parents can’t manage to tell their sniffling bratty kids no when they want to shove some processed meat in the piehole.
2. In baseball you gain weight as your career progresses, in other sports you get to be fat while you play. See football, golf, bowling, fishing, etc.
1. All that down time in baseball makes for incredible entertainment. Aside from the putt putt golf, restaurants, and shopping malls now found in many baseball stadiums, you also get awesome stuff like the sausage race in Milwaukee, the orange train in Houston, throwing the ball back in Chicago, the Shea apple, and the countless 7th inning stretches from LA to Boston.
In a case of Pros v. Joes, I’ll bet you I could return a Roger Federer serve back in play in less chances that you could hit a Tim Lintecum pitch out of the infield. Ed, can you work your connections and see if you can arrange that?
I love BBall. And you are right Brad. Pro athlets are not like the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteI drew Al Oliver in a racket ball turny once. Not only was he big, but he was fast as a cat. It was a short 11 to zip contest. As you say, they are paid for what they can do.
Go Redsoxs