Baseball is the sport America wants to be. Football is the sport America is.

Apologies to George Carlin...

But think about it:

Baseball is about using brains before brawn. Yeah yeah yeah, they all use steroids - so does every other athlete. But the idea behind baseball is all about calculated risks. Should you steal 2nd or not? Should you try to hit a HR, or bunt, sacrificing yourself so the guy on 3rd can score?

Football is about all out war. It is the game of bullies. Find the weakness, exploit it, and pulverize the competition.

The calls are made in part by the captain and in part by the coach. But players don't really get a say.

Baseball on the other hand, is fairly autonomous. Before a pitch is thrown, the Captain does not get with everyone and state the rules of engagement. Some of the bigger mix ups have happened because of pop flys in the outfield and the two fielders ran into each other.

Hell, even the pitcher can throw off a call from the catcher. See Bull Durham. If for any reason, it shows Costner, Robbins and Sarandon at their best as actors and actresses.

See? How many great movies were made about football?

Even Brian's Song is seen as overreaching and trite.

Baseball movies, shit, I can't stop on those! I mean, you can even just stick to TV and get that show about the 70's Yankees and that movie about Maris and Mantle!

Anyway, stupid speculation over :)

Bless Ted, bless Keith.

Sure there is some strategy in baseball such as you described and moving fielders around depending on the type of batter also walking players depending on the situation but football is a lot more complex. You have quite a few different formations on offense and defense. You got all 22 players moving with a specific purposes such as players moving in motion. Corners either playing man-to-man(not to mention who to cover), zone, or blitzing. There are just so many different things that you can do and so many options on what you can do it would take an entire article and possibly a book to describe it all.

but doesn't.

but doesn't.

Football is by far the more cerebral sport. In baseball, a lot of what's done is by rote, and the teams who can afford or recruit the best athletes win (see exhibit #1, New York Yankees).

The amount of thinking that has to be done by most defensive players before, during and after a play is extraordinary. And that's nothing compared to what some of the offensive players have to process in a very short period of time. I coach 4th - 7th graders, and our offensive schemes and descriptions are over 100 pages. The playbook itself is 40 pages long, and provides variations for over 100,000 unique plays.

I love baseball, but it usually only requires a singular concentration for most players on any given play. Their movements (deep infield, stretch left outfield, etc.) are dictated by a manager, and they do their job. It definitely has to be a well oiled machine to work well, but after coaching both football and baseball it doesn't come close to what football demands of a player.

And sports movies? I usually hate them - football, baseball, or golf. Happy Gilmore is the only sports related movie that I really enjoyed and it was about golf fer chrissakes.

in baseball, in any given play, anything can happen. The ball can be hit so hard that it runs along the railing of the bleachers and dumps out on to the field and is still in play if caught

Football, things do not diverge from the grid iron. That's why its called a grid.

Again, this is useless shennanigans on my part...

until it reached "thread that never dies" proportions.

All I'll say is that they're both great sports, and both totally American (although the Asians and Latin Americans have been regularly kicking our ass at Baseball over the last 2 decades, which sucks).

My old roommate in college played Guard, and graduated cum with a degree in computer science.

Most people who haven't played or coached don't understand not only the intellectual intensity required to play the O-line, but the complex blocking schemes required in some offenses nowadays. Someone watching on TV may incorrectly assume that the O-linemen is only required to hold a defender back from getting to the QB or RB, but it's just not that simple. I know quite a few O-Linemen who played or are playing in college and the NFL, and all of them are really, really smart dudes. That's why you see a lot of them in the coaching ranks.

Most of us on the OL were the students were were both pretty smart and were "well padded" so to speak. :)

Unfortunately our QB was a bit of a dim-bulb stereotypical jock.

Nothin' wrong with having some healthy padding. :)

I agree with your take.

Also, in football the ballet of movement throughout each play takes instinct and brains to read.

There is both an art and a science to football that I love.

But then I am prejudiced in favor of baseball. It can be so beautiful to watch. And it's a game where the spotlight is always on one individual at a time. Football, complicated strategies and all, still looks like organized mob violence to me.
I think 61, that Maris /Mantle movie you mentioned, is a remarkable flick.

and the rest of the league has totally ruined any interest that this country has in the game.

Super-roided freaks, breaking records, and only two teams that are truly competitive every year. It's become a joke.

is really really striking.

I suggest a lot less trite in your diet. And Brian's Song was fucking awesome.

I watched Brian's Song one day, someone told me it was intense and make me weepy.

I was all "Psah, I'm not a sports guy, if it's a good movie, cool. But it won't affect me like that."

Afterwards.....Manly-tears.

I'm sick of the FUCKING YANKEES winning every other World Series and pulverizing my Twins in the playoffs! :grr: