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Baseball is a dumb sport.
Atomika
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Baseball is a dumb sport. There. I said it. This is not a thread about Baseball, per se, but rather strictly pertaining to how dumb it is as a sport.
Now, let's not start off too ridiculous, this topic is inflammatory enough. Baseball IS a sport. It's an athletic venture in which victory is largely dependent on the physical performance of its players. This is what separates "sports" from other games, as those merely in the latter category only requires rules and protocol, and are missing the key element of physical performance. However, just because baseball is a sport it is not inherently imbued with special standing; there are many sports not only dumber than baseball, but dumber than many non-sport games. Such as curling, or competitive eating. Dungeons & Dragons or Chinese Checkers are less dumb than curling or competitive eating.
But I will delineate ever further- Baseball is not even inherently a dumb sport. The best players of the game are finely-tuned athletes who could not play like they do without dedication to personal perfection and understanding of the game. No, instead, what makes baseball dumb is the way we treat the professional expression of the game, and how we allow professional baseball players to treat themselves. I really like lists. Here's another.
Professional Baseball is Dumb Because:
- Everything is irregular, and few standards exist. While all bases and pitching mounds are uniformly spread across field, nothing nearly that regular applies to outfield wall distances or height. Some parks have center walls of 310', others have walls of 430'. Some walls are 5 feet high, some walls are over 30 feet high. This is fairly analogous to football fields having fields varying between 80 and 150 yards, or endzones that vary between 5 and 20 yards, or goalposts that change width. Or certain basketball arenas having 13-foot hoops. While such irregularity doesn't hamper individual play (except for pitchers), it does really fuck statistics all to hell. A slugger with 70 home games at a short-walled park is going to have a better chance at leading the league in HRs than some guy trying bang away and hit 450' every time to clear out. The inverse is true for pitchers, and the ERA is going to suck when half or more of the outfield flyballs that would fall dead in most parks scores runs against you. Basically, by turning statistics into a crapshoot, you lose control over the management and development of the game from year to year.
- People make ridiculous amounts of money ($3 millon/year on average) for doing seemingly little work. Outside of pitching, obviously, baseball isn't like football, basketball, or hockey where interpersonal match-ups and team dynamics shape the outcome. You don't change your short-stop based on who is catching for the other team, and who you have playing first base has no bearing on the offensive ability of the guy at the plate against you. What's more, they're really not doing much to exert themselves. Whatever you personally think about LeBron James, Tony Romo, or Sean Avery, those guys are in motion at all points in their playing time, often getting battered and bruised and even injured. Alex Rodriguez, on the other hand, only works half of each inning, maybe bats three or four times, and stands motionless 95% of the time he's on the playing surface. For that, he makes $32 million a year, twice that of the highest NFL salaries earned by people who get the shit beat out of them as a legitimate game objective, who have careers far shorter than MLBers due to wear and tear. Baseball, at the professional level, is about as strenuous as golf, though I'm pretty sure golfers have to walk around a lot more.
- Somewhat related to the above: Many positions in baseball to not require athleticism. Pitching is obviously the shining example of this strange aspect of a highly-watched professional sport (see: David Wells, Livan Hernandez), but it doesn't stop there (Miguel Cabrera, Fielders C.C. and Prince). There aren't people that fat even in the offensive lines of pro football, and those guys can wear 50 pounds of gear while getting pounded on for several hours. Seriously, if the stars of your "sport" can be 45-year-old Type-2 diabetics with a BMI of 50, maybe something should change. That's what professional bowlers look like, not baseball players.
- Tobacco. For fucks sake. Any sport that has a long, proud tradition of doing drugs DURING play really can't be all that spectacular.
- Different Rules for Different Leagues. The American League has the DH. The National League makes pitchers bat. Yet they play each other in interleague play and the World Series at parks with different dimensional proportions like everything is equal and square. Fuck off, DHs. Fuck right off.
- Managers and coaches wearing team uniforms. Joe Torre and Lou Piniella are literally old enough to collect social security checks. Do we really expect them to take field and play centerfield if shit hits the fan? Fuck no. Let's stop this ridiculous tradition. Or otherwise, we gotta make Rex Ryan put on pads and a helmet to call plays, and I'm pretty sure the equipment company doesn't make pants for an ass that fat. Nolan Ryan wears a sportcoat and jeans to every game; Ron Washington should get to do the same.
- Too many fucking games. 162 games. Twice that of basketball. Ten times that of football. Not only does that lessen the importance of individual contests, but it increases player fatigue, which to a fan watching the games means an increase in the odds that any given night I'm going to turn on a game and see half a dozen kids pulled up from AAA and the 15th strongest pitcher in our bullpen getting shellacked for 20 runs by Baltimore's starting squad. "Hey," they'll say, "it doesn't mean anything. We're giving our starters some rest." Oh, really? Well maybe I give my patronage a rest, eh? How about my wallet takes a few nights off from paying ESPN and TBS to watch these shitty games? How about I give my season tickets some R&R next year by not buying them? If a sport can involve several completely meaningless games every season where the starters don't play, A) you're playing too many fucking games, and
your sport sucks.
Now, let's not start off too ridiculous, this topic is inflammatory enough. Baseball IS a sport. It's an athletic venture in which victory is largely dependent on the physical performance of its players. This is what separates "sports" from other games, as those merely in the latter category only requires rules and protocol, and are missing the key element of physical performance. However, just because baseball is a sport it is not inherently imbued with special standing; there are many sports not only dumber than baseball, but dumber than many non-sport games. Such as curling, or competitive eating. Dungeons & Dragons or Chinese Checkers are less dumb than curling or competitive eating.
But I will delineate ever further- Baseball is not even inherently a dumb sport. The best players of the game are finely-tuned athletes who could not play like they do without dedication to personal perfection and understanding of the game. No, instead, what makes baseball dumb is the way we treat the professional expression of the game, and how we allow professional baseball players to treat themselves. I really like lists. Here's another.
Professional Baseball is Dumb Because:
- Everything is irregular, and few standards exist. While all bases and pitching mounds are uniformly spread across field, nothing nearly that regular applies to outfield wall distances or height. Some parks have center walls of 310', others have walls of 430'. Some walls are 5 feet high, some walls are over 30 feet high. This is fairly analogous to football fields having fields varying between 80 and 150 yards, or endzones that vary between 5 and 20 yards, or goalposts that change width. Or certain basketball arenas having 13-foot hoops. While such irregularity doesn't hamper individual play (except for pitchers), it does really fuck statistics all to hell. A slugger with 70 home games at a short-walled park is going to have a better chance at leading the league in HRs than some guy trying bang away and hit 450' every time to clear out. The inverse is true for pitchers, and the ERA is going to suck when half or more of the outfield flyballs that would fall dead in most parks scores runs against you. Basically, by turning statistics into a crapshoot, you lose control over the management and development of the game from year to year.
- People make ridiculous amounts of money ($3 millon/year on average) for doing seemingly little work. Outside of pitching, obviously, baseball isn't like football, basketball, or hockey where interpersonal match-ups and team dynamics shape the outcome. You don't change your short-stop based on who is catching for the other team, and who you have playing first base has no bearing on the offensive ability of the guy at the plate against you. What's more, they're really not doing much to exert themselves. Whatever you personally think about LeBron James, Tony Romo, or Sean Avery, those guys are in motion at all points in their playing time, often getting battered and bruised and even injured. Alex Rodriguez, on the other hand, only works half of each inning, maybe bats three or four times, and stands motionless 95% of the time he's on the playing surface. For that, he makes $32 million a year, twice that of the highest NFL salaries earned by people who get the shit beat out of them as a legitimate game objective, who have careers far shorter than MLBers due to wear and tear. Baseball, at the professional level, is about as strenuous as golf, though I'm pretty sure golfers have to walk around a lot more.
- Somewhat related to the above: Many positions in baseball to not require athleticism. Pitching is obviously the shining example of this strange aspect of a highly-watched professional sport (see: David Wells, Livan Hernandez), but it doesn't stop there (Miguel Cabrera, Fielders C.C. and Prince). There aren't people that fat even in the offensive lines of pro football, and those guys can wear 50 pounds of gear while getting pounded on for several hours. Seriously, if the stars of your "sport" can be 45-year-old Type-2 diabetics with a BMI of 50, maybe something should change. That's what professional bowlers look like, not baseball players.
- Tobacco. For fucks sake. Any sport that has a long, proud tradition of doing drugs DURING play really can't be all that spectacular.
- Different Rules for Different Leagues. The American League has the DH. The National League makes pitchers bat. Yet they play each other in interleague play and the World Series at parks with different dimensional proportions like everything is equal and square. Fuck off, DHs. Fuck right off.
- Managers and coaches wearing team uniforms. Joe Torre and Lou Piniella are literally old enough to collect social security checks. Do we really expect them to take field and play centerfield if shit hits the fan? Fuck no. Let's stop this ridiculous tradition. Or otherwise, we gotta make Rex Ryan put on pads and a helmet to call plays, and I'm pretty sure the equipment company doesn't make pants for an ass that fat. Nolan Ryan wears a sportcoat and jeans to every game; Ron Washington should get to do the same.
- Too many fucking games. 162 games. Twice that of basketball. Ten times that of football. Not only does that lessen the importance of individual contests, but it increases player fatigue, which to a fan watching the games means an increase in the odds that any given night I'm going to turn on a game and see half a dozen kids pulled up from AAA and the 15th strongest pitcher in our bullpen getting shellacked for 20 runs by Baltimore's starting squad. "Hey," they'll say, "it doesn't mean anything. We're giving our starters some rest." Oh, really? Well maybe I give my patronage a rest, eh? How about my wallet takes a few nights off from paying ESPN and TBS to watch these shitty games? How about I give my season tickets some R&R next year by not buying them? If a sport can involve several completely meaningless games every season where the starters don't play, A) you're playing too many fucking games, and
your sport sucks.Atomika on
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This is stupid and you are a goose.
EDIT: I can expand on this if you want but it's so obvious why this is stupid and goosey that I think just pointing it out will make you realise your mistake.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
wat
But baseball's also responsible for "The Natural", which was a great film.
"Self, do you want to watch Baseball?"
Then I consider for a moment and answer myself:
"Nah, not really."
I'm not really a sports guy anyway, but if tennis, golf, soccer, or football are on I'm more inclined to watch them. Something about baseball (and basketball) just feels like visual noise to me.
Surely, all the terrible baseball movies have more then made up for the few good ones.
Also: at least in golf, the player is involved in every stroke. As a baseball player, the better your team's pitcher is, the higher your chance of doing absolutely nothing for ~90% of the game.
Football has a guaranteed 60 minutes of berserk pounding of things.
I'm pretty sure the breakdown of baseball in a manner similar to that graph would look similarly bad, if not worse. And in football specifically, during all the time not being run off the clock other things are happening. Plays are being called. Formations are being analyzed. Strategies are being developed. Coaches are talking to their players about the coming series. Everyone is lugging around heavy equipment.
Baseball is just guys standing around a dugout waiting to go back to their positions, where once there they will stand around and wait for a play to happen.
there's far too much delay between pitches
And if things go REALLY well that inning, for 7 of those guys nothing will happen! They will be thrilled to do nothing!
Long tradition of players chewing tobacco during the game. And spitting the juice everywhere.
I have only the haziest impression of what baseball is or how it is played.
The problem is that baseball is more spread out than other sports and a large part of it is subtle movements, so it is pretty much impossible to capture it well with a TV camera. On the other hand, there is no better sport to actually be there for, which is why baseball still claims the largest number of attending fans among the US sports.
Everyone chewed tobacco in baseball, up until the late 80's or so. So much so that a gum was created for kids to mimic chewing tobacco.
:edit: (Ok, image won't work for some reason but Burtletoy stepped up)
Which was actually a ridiculously awesome gum, despite its nefarious intentions.
Packing your cheek up all Lenny Dykstra-style.
Baseball is best.
I do think there is a severe disconnect between watching a sport on TV and watching it in person. Ive been to baseball games live and enjoyed them much more. But how much of that is about the sport and how much of it is about the social atmosphere? I think, when you actually divorce yourself from the social aspect, maybe that is an even better representation of the quality of the sport itself.
Basketball is the same for me. I cannot stand to watch it on TV. But I have enjoyed it in person.
Yeah, it's not like baseball players spend half of the game sitting in a dugout and 90% of the rest of the game standing around waiting for something to maybe happen that involves them.
no. not at all.
Maybe the individual players do, but there's always some players doing something. In football, you're only going to see 11 minutes of stuff on the clock, and most of that is them preparing for the time where anything is actually happening.
Anyway yeah, baseball sucks. I feel like it might be a game that's been developed a little too far. The original idea is fun- throw a ball, hit the ball, try to run around a course before anyone can catch the ball- but baseball now is just this monstrosity of boredom and statistics.
I agree with you both.
Hockey IS the greatest sport.
Gum, at least gum with sugar, is not good for you. But...I have a hard time believing that chewing tabacco could be better.
But if Sabathia has a good night on the mound? Mark Teixiera just got paid $130,000 to stand around in tight pants.
Yes, that's what Teixiera makes per game.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
It's a joke you're playing on the civilized world!
Baseball is a dumb sport.
But all sports are dumb compared to hockey anyway, so it's cool.
Xbox Live Gamertag: Suplex86
The thing is, why is that guy that fat? Why is he allowed to be? Why is it tolerated? Why does professional baseball say, "Hey, it's okay that David Wells eats a whole pig everyday. His curveball breaks 94mph." And then says for those special fat dudes, since they throw that ball so well they don't have to play the same game as everyone else on the field and swing a bat.
No I think we're all pretty clear on the concept that it's really hard to hit those pitches. It's just really boring.
You seem to have misspelled football(soccer).
I agree with this thread 1 BILLION PERCENT.
Your clock goes in the wrong direction.
its p stupid
If we agree that these fat guys are doing something really difficult that an otherwise athletic person coudln't, what's the problem? I look at golfers, or dart and billiard player the same way. It doesn't matter if their built or a fat slob, they are the best at what they do and are paid accordingly.
My biggest gripe with baseball, though some people love this aspect, is how it's generally a 1-on-1 game dressed as a team sport. There are various little things going on during the play, but in the end it is batter vs pitcher, fielder vs runner and that's it.
Xbox Live Gamertag: Suplex86
Baseball can produce some great drama, but there is alot that can be tweaked about the game to make it better. The stadium thing is a unique quirk to baseball, but it isnt going to change anytime soon. We just arent going to build 30 new identical stadiums. It's not gonna happen, way too expensive, so deal with it.
One thing I don't understand is that for the sport with the longest season by a landslide, why don't the teams all play each other at least once a year? Why do the Royals and the Twins have to play 20 times each year, but the Royals can't play the Dodgers at least once? And why does even mentioning that point draw dirty stares from those who "get baseball"? Baseball has a long and great history and tradition, but quite frankly it's holding them back at times. The world today is so much different than it was even 10 years ago, but baseball insists on doing a lot of things the way they did 100 years ago just because "that's the way we always did it". Don't be afraid of change.
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The ironic thing being that most people who are staunch ears-in-fingers-lalalala traditionalists refuse to acknowledge that baseball has changed drastically since its original inception 150 years ago.