Six Areas Where Baseball Still Triumphs Over Football

In just a few weeks, football season will start, which will coincide with the stretch run in baseball’s pennant races, that time of the long 162-game season where playoff spots will be decided.

In the past several decades, the highest professional level of football has become the number one spectator sport in America. It has clearly surpassed baseball in the minds of many sports fans.

Among the factors cited in the fans’ preference of the gridiron over the diamond are more action, more speed and athleticism among the athletes, the excitement of seeing violent mayhem among 300-pound behemoths, and in the case of many males, scantily-clad young women shaking their pom-poms and dancing around.

I am no exception in my being a fan of the 100-yard sport, particularly at the collegiate level.

Major college football is absolutely my favorite sport to watch, and the varsity squad of my alma mater, the UCLA Bruins, is my favorite team in all of sports. I have been a fervent and passionate supporter of the True Blue and Gold for over twenty years, and some of the happiest days of my life have involved Bruin victories over their crosstown rival, USC.

Having stated that, and having been immensely involved in baseball as a player, coach, and fan since the age of ten, there are still some areas where the national pastime still surpasses the gridiron. As much as I prefer to watch college football, these are still the things that make baseball still a credible game over the one with the pigskin:

1. The difficulty of playing the game. I would like to see Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Reggie Bush, or any other NFL player (or a fan) try and hit a 95 mile-an-hour fast- ball, or an exploding slider, or a curveball breaking from 12 to 6. There is a reason why ballplayers who are only successful at the plate three out of ten times are multi- millionaires. You think Brett Favre would be rich and successful if he only completed 3 out of 10 passes?
2. The physical conditions of former NFL players as opposed to former MLB players. Ex-gridiron stars in constant pain, with plastic joints, and barely being able to walk are commonplace. Jim Otto, the Raider’s former offensive line standout, has had both his knees replaced, among other joints, and takes 30 minutes to get out of bed in the morning. The former Baltimore Colt legend Johnny Unitas could not straighten his hand after his days were done. Joe Namath’s knees were causing him extreme pain throughout his career; they were eventually replaced, of course.

   Dick Butkus, the god-like Chicago Bear linebacker, cannot squat down today. Earl Campbell, the bruising Houston Oiler running back who was an icon of my youth, needs a cane to get around. And the list goes on and on. Baseball players, while having their share of injuries, do not get the career-ending debilitations at the same level of ex-football stars; one has a better chance of being able to walk without excruciating pain after a career with the Yankees than after a career with the Cowboys..

3. Because football games are controlled by a clock, if one team is winning by forty points with two minutes left in the game, it is a foregone conclusion that the game is essentially over; the losing team would have no chance at a comeback, because there simply wouldn’t be enough time. In baseball, however, a team still needs to get 27 outs in order to win a game, regardless of how many runs they are winning by. As long as the team that’s losing has not made that 27th out, it still has a chance. Unlike in football, you can’t just take a knee at the end of a game and kill the clock. Many a time has a team scored the winning runs while down to their last out.
4. Baseball has more of a historical significance, as far as statistics, records, and folklore. Here’s an illustration: Say that a person asks these questions – What is Walter Payton’s lifetime rushing yards total? And what was Jim Brown’s when Payton passed him? What is Brett Favre’s touchdown passing total? And what was Dan Marino’s when Favre passed him? It is highly likely that the most fanatical football fan wouldn’t know the answers to those questions. The casual baseball fan, however, knows that Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, that Henry Aaron passed him with 755 homers, and even that Barry Bonds broke that record in 2007 with 762 dingers.

   The casual fan knows that Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 consecutive games, and that Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, the last man to hit so high. He would know that Nolan Ryan pitched seven no-hitters, and passed Sandy Koufax, who had four. These are things that make baseball the pastime that it is; having a sense of history and being that football doesn’t have, not in the same way. When the Yankees were drawing 70,000-plus crowds on a regular basis in the 1920’s, the NFL was struggling to attract crowds on high school fields. In short, the history of baseball has a bigger part in the nation’s fabric and folklore than their football counterparts.

5. Baseball skills are more difficult to master than football skills. In football, if you only stand out in one area, like blocking, you can be successful, without being able to throw, catch, or run. In baseball, however, a player’s ability needs to be measured in at least three categories hitting, fielding, and throwing. Proficiency is needed in all three of those areas in order to be considered good. The sport is more challenging that way.
6. While football is a tremendous team game, when the outcome of a contest is on the line, a team can continuously go to its best guy to try and save the day; the Chargers can give the ball to LaDainian Tomlinson on every play and have him win the game for them (with a little help from his blockers, of course). In baseball, however, Alex Rodriguez still has to bat once out of every nine hitters; the Yankees cannot send him up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth as the winning run if his turn has not come up yet. If Richie Sexson is due to bat, A-Rod can’t bat for him. In other words, he can’t save the day. Sexson has to.

   When it comes down to it, I think it is a matter of individual and generational perspective when people debate whether baseball or football is the more preferable game, an apples versus oranges type of thing.

It seems that the older generations, the baby boomers, their parents and grandparents, still consider baseball a formidable game to watch and enjoy, if not outright preferring it over football, because it is what they grew up with, while Generation X and their offspring tend to lean more towards the gridiron.

One must remember that throughout much of the 20th Century, through the 1960’s, baseball was the focal point of sports in American society. It was not until the advent of the Super Bowl in 1967 that football really began to make its rise in popularity.

At the end of the day, however, one must conclude that there are some things about football that make it better than baseball, and some things about baseball that still make it better than football. That is the essential point that I was trying to make, that despite the runaway popularity that football enjoys today, there are some things about the old national pastime that still make it enjoyable, and preferable to football.

George Carlin perhaps said it best when during his stand-up comedy routine in which he compared baseball to football, he said

“In baseball the object of the game is to GO HOME! And to BE SAFE!”

In the long run, I believe everyone wants that feeling.