Editor: Bill is a pastor in East Texas and blogs at Broken and Undone.
Enjoying some good banter over at SBC Voices, somebody made the argument that football was better than baseball AND that it would continue to replace baseball as America’s Nat’l pastime.
Obviously that is insane… over a century of baseball cannot possibly be overrun by mere decades with the pigskin. So, having consulted with other baseball lists, here are substantive reasons (unlike those offered in support of football) for the supremacy of baseball over other sports (in no particular order).
- Spring Training.
- Opening Day — the ceremony of baseball’s opening day is unparalleled.
- Ballparks — The venues in baseball are far superior. There is simply no football equivalent to Wrigley or Fenway. More intimate, more friendly, better atmosphere… again, no comparison.
- The “Seventh Inning Stretch” & “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” — enough said.
- Stats… baseball has better stats.
- “The Clubhouse” vs. “The Locker Room” — the way teams come together in baseball is far superior to the way teams operate in other sports.
- 27 outs. It doesn’t matter if a team is down by one run or ten runs, their opponent still has to get that 27th out. Without a clock in charge, there’s always a chance, however small. You can never “run down the clock”
- Every Day — There is baseball every day. A grueling schedule is demanding and also gives a better gauge of who the best teams are.
- Extra Innings — the only sport that really knows how to break a tie.
- Pennant Races
- No-hitters, shut-outs, and “The perfect game”
- Playing Catch — This is related to the ballpark argument and really goes has more to do with the whole nostalgia of the game… no other sport compares with it.
- Baseball cards.
- SKILL — Baseball is a much better “skill” sport. You have to field AND hit. And hitting a baseball is arguably the most difficult thing to do in sports. It is the hardest sport to play at the MLB level. Almost never do you find a guy from high school or even college come right out and make an immediate impact.
- Minor League Baseball
- the College World Series
- the Little League World Series — Setting aside my animosity for committing too much family time to a sport at that age, the fact remains — I have never heard of a PeeWee Football Super Bowl.
- Better movies — The Natural, Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, the Sandlot, even For the Love of the Game and Bad News Bears.
- Better Heroes — I recognize greatness in other sports, but not one has the same legacy of baseball: Cal Ripkin, Jr., Ernie Banks, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, and Jackie Robinson.
- Simply put… Baseball builds better men. Just a fact.