25 More Reasons
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It's a funny thing about sports: You can pick it up, or put it down.
I got all wayyyyy into the Arsenal Gunners - Manchester United Red Devils matchup yesterday. I turned on the DVR, and they kicked the ball off, and it was all downhill from there. My remedy was simple. I fast-forwarded, confirmed the loss, and then [until right this moment] vaporized soccer from my existence.
It's one of my most valuable life tricks, seriously. I just switch my realities when it comes to entertainment. One isn't working, just "cancel" it like La Femme Nikita sneaking up behind a baddie from Red Cell. Boom, pick up your new reality.
The Seahawks are 9-1, gentlemen. Their defense has the great secondary, they got FOUR pass-rushing ends, they got FOUR interior linemen, EVERY SINGLE PLAY they got a new batting order out there, swinging from the heels against a quarterback who looks a lot like Horacio Ramirez.
We don't wanna miss the next ... um ... nine games. (Docter Dee will still post more about baseball than football.)
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CBS' 25 reasons to prefer football. ... Some are stupid. Some that ain't:
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2. Football can be played by anyone, anywhere. All it takes is at least two players, and a $15 dollar ball. Baseball requires two $40 gloves, a $7 ball, a $50 bat, and so much more.
I've always loved the pitch-and-catch of football. Baseball has four types of pitches. But Russell Wilson had at least 10 ways to throw the ball yesterday ... rainbows, and 15-yard lightning bolts, and back-shoulder jump balls, and ... man, his receivers do go up and fight for the ball, don't they?
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4. The average fan can pick up and understand football. In baseball, the average fan cannot tell the difference between a two-seam, a four seam, or a cut fastball.
My wife STILL cannot, even from the CF camera, tell a curve ball from a fastball.
That's not relevant to you and me, but ... it's still true that most of the time, we do not know what Felix Hernandez is trying to do with a pitch. Nor what Justin Smoak is thinking at the plate, on a 1-1 pitch. (Wait, that's totally unfair; Justin Smoak also does not know what he is thinking at the plate, on a 1-1 pitch.)
The flow of a Seahawk game is very, very easy to understand. On 2nd-and-8 from our 40, you know exactly what a "good" result is, and the three ways they'll try to get it.
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7. The individual baseball games are meaningless. Game 34 means just as much as game 134. What you're watching has no bearing on the season.
9. In football, playoff games actually mean something. That one game decides who progresses and who stays home.
Baseball ... we DO get games, six days a week. I miss that, don't you?
But it's like six days a week of ... sleeping on a soft matress. Luxurious, comfortable, smile-inducing sleep. Football is like one day a week of ... the first night of your honeymoon. (You really needed that visual from ME, didn't you.) What's better?
Also: with the Seahawks now favored to go to the Super Bowl, every other game in the NFL with contenders in it, becomes a type of Seahawk game. So that's what, 3-4 days a week we get games now?
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11. Football games are lively, upbeat, and exciting. In today's world of instant gratification and limited attention spans, many cannot appreciate the finer points of baseball.
This is an interesting point.
As a public speaker, I am PAINFULLY aware of the way that American attention spans are changing. Watch a movie trailer. The scenes cut away Every. Three. Seconds. Flick! Flick! Flick!
Suppose it took this page four (4) seconds to load?
But ... the slow suspense that baseball has ... perhaps that serves as a foil to the spinning kaleidoscope we get everywhere else? Are our minds conditioned so that they are unable to hold attention, or are they in need of rest from the spin-cycle of information?
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15. Every football team has a specific philosophy on offense AND on defense.
I don't think we baseball fans can minimize this point. It wouldn't be fair, at least.
In baseball there's really One Right Way to Play. Don't bunt. Don't steal bases. Don't swing too hard; go for OBP. You know what I mean.
But football teams do, indeed, have styles. Baseball is like you go to the movies, and every actor is Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher, with no Harrison Fords available.
Even the quarterbacks. Russell Wilson's style, and Peyton Manning's, how different are those styles? Take Lloyd McClendon, on CBS point #17. Is he even allowed to have a style that deviates more than 6" from Standard MLB(TM) Dugout Manager? What decisions will he even have available?
(Equal time disclaimer: Brad Miller is quite a different idea from Jack Wilson or Brendan Ryan. A bat-first outfield is quite a different idea from a glove OF, and when you get somebody who does both -- Jacoby Ellsbury -- that's distinct, too.)
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25. There is a salary cap in football.
And every team wants to win.