Tagged As: baseball, basketball, football, MLB, NFL, NBA, Sports

I love sports. I check ESPN's website dozens of times a day for the latest development on the NFL front and for things as silly as the New York Yankees ERA last season. I am not so completely insulated from reality that I can not appreciate how silly the idea of professional sports can sometimes be, and sometimes I wonder which sport is the silliest.

When I think of silly sports I do not think of mid-level sports like rugby, niche sports like paintball, or individual competitions like golf. No I think of the major sports, baseball, basketball, football, and soccer (despite my dislike for the sport it is a global phenomenon which must be respected).

I think perhaps the least nonsensical sport is football. Every sport is preposterous in reality, but anybody who enjoys sports and has ever had NFL tickets or watched a game on television cannot deny the manliness of the game. Grown men, wrapped in layers of muscle and “pads” that are really hard plastic body suits effectively making them more dangerous projectiles, fling themselves at each other with the ultimate goal of taking down the other player.

For anybody who discounts strategy in this game, you must look at the players on the field as the pawns, bishops, and knights with the head coach as the king. There is a reason they call the plays the way they do. The offenses have real strategy and modern defenses require the players to have theoretical understanding of the Cover-2. The sport really is perhaps the most barbaric and warlike, and that is in essence, the greatness of the sport. Strategy and violence that would never be allowed in the context of the real world is carried out by teams like the New York Giants or the Pittsburgh Steelers before millions of fans acting out their instincts vicariously through the action on the field.

Basketball is silly in that ten very tall people are running up and a down a 94-foot hardwood court trying to get the orange leather ball into a metal rim that is 18 inches in diameter. That absurdity is also why the game is wonderful. It is quick thanks to the relative short distance of the court and is a game about quickness when slashing to the rim, timely cuts for beautiful passes, or precision when trying to the ball that is 30 inches in circumference into the rim that is only 56 inches around.

The athletes are mixture of height, speed, quickness, and strength. David Stern has often said that the NBA has the best athletes in the world and I must say he is correct. The mere coordination of the men as they approach seven feet is astounding. Anyone with NBA tickets can tell you that the action you see on the television is a mirage and that even the lumbering big men are far faster and quicker than the average person, even if they are in great shape.

Soccer is not my sport. I find it dull. I often find that despite the rumor that the players are always running, more often than not they are barely jogging in the middle of the field. They are, however, almost in perpetual and that is much more difficult than it sounds. Also, like all games, the passing is based on angles and triangulation, at least when good soccer teams are playing.

Do I appreciate a game where ten shots over the course of 90 minutes is considered a lot? No. But I do appreciate the marathon mentality of the sport. Thus the marathon session trumps the inane quality of chasing a ball for 45 minutes at a time. Perhaps when the MLS gets enough talent to play on the same level as some European teams I will start to enjoy the sport, but I still doubt it, even after watching the last three World Cups.

Perhaps the most ridiculous sport is baseball. It takes the least amount of athleticism by far (example: Cecil Fielder) and is far slower than any other sport (with the possible exception of soccer). Most of the game is spent taking a step to the right or left. It is more of a game of anticipation than a game of action. Most of the time in a MLB game is spent in a duel between the pitchers mound and the batters box.

In America it is a game steeped in tradition. It was our first sport, whether it was invented here or not. It is more about enjoying the time outside than enjoying the fluidity of the human body. The truly astounding aspect of the sport is hitting. A batter stands in a box that is 60 feet and six inches from the pitcher. The batter is trying to make contact with 90 mile per hour fastballs or catch the rotation and drive a hanging curve ball over the right field wall. The batter has half a second to decide what the pitch is, where it is going, and swing. This is perhaps the most amazing thing about the game and this is what separates the average beer belly softball player from the millionaire beer belly first baseman.