The Monkey Cage

When George Will was a kid, if he got into a baseball game, it was for right field, usually as the last pick. This may account for his success as a pundit.

Disapproving of football because there is too much of “guys standing around”, while simultaneously advocating for baseball, is the height of irony. Is there any sport that consists more of “guys standing around” (okay, okay golf) than baseball?

One of my pet peeves is reducing a sport to a one sentence simplification as a way of demonstrating it’s inferiority. It’s an embarrassing way of avoiding any deeper understanding of a sport and attempting to minimize a complex game: “Soccer is just people trying to kick a ball until someone overreacts and celebrates for too long”, “Basketball is just lobbing a ball at a metal ring and preening for the cameras when it does”

Shag: Good one.

Sam: If that’s one of your pet peeves, your life must be in extremely good shape. Anyway, I understand your point about irony but disagree about it. Baseball has no time clock. It’s timeless (or, if you ask my wife, who is no baseball fan, it’s infinite). As the linked article notes, a great deal of football strategy, by contrast, has to do with clock management, so the sight of all those fat guys just standing around, irrespective of whether time is in or out, runs counter to most other aspects of the game except (1) commercialism and (2) giantism.

“guys standing around trying to catch their breath while waiting for the clock finally to restart so they can ply their trade for about six seconds”

Jeeze, how many plays in baseball last longer than six seconds? When’s the last time you saw football stop while the QB warms up? In what other sport will men run full speed at each other from 50 yrds away resulting in an in a inelastic collision? Where else in sports is the self-sacrifice, the self control of the interior offensive lineman?

I started as a freshman on the Varsity team in high school, the best men I have ever known…bar none, were my teammates, even the ones I didn’t like…I wish them well…each and every one. I never felt that about any baseball team I played on.

S Brennan:

Again, baseball wasn’t designed to run by a clock. Of course there’s lots of standing around in baseball. Let’s move on.

Now, men running full speed from fifty yards away to result in an inelastic collision is a good thing? (1) I don’t see many football players out there, except the wide receivers and defensive backs (both of whom are superbly conditioned athletes) running 50 yards at a time on anything except kickoffs. (2) Even if they did/could, inelastic collisions aren’t my definition of a good sporting event.

Self-sacrifice by interior offensive linemen? Well, that’s what I was. Played all those years and never touched the ball, even once. My, what fun.

I’m pleased to hear that you had great football teammates (no sarcasm intended). I don’t understand how that bears on the conversation, though. (I had great baseball teammates. Of course, because I grew up in a small town, my baseball teammates were the same people as my football teammates. :-) )

Here’s the solution to football: Tivo the game, and then as soon as the down ends, do eight seconds back followed by a thirty second skip. 90% of the time, that will get you to the point where the team is walking up to the line of scrimmage. Throw in the fact that you can skip all the commercials, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can watch a whole game in under an hour. Now, this isn’t really a social experience, but if you’ve got little kids and don’t have three hours free on a Sunday afternoon, it works great.

One problem with Will’s analysis: the huddle is not a “committee meeting”. The players are not debating which plays to run, they are being told by the quarterback…