Hope I'm doing this right, folks.

Ahem. To the point: Football is better than baseball to me personally.

Had I been brought up on the American side of the pond I would no doubt have the opposite opinion but! Football (or soccer) has to be the winner because:

It is the only sport to ever reduce a grumpy bastard like myself to (near) tears consistently, but not tears of sad, soppy, wet, puffery but manly tears in appreciation of something amazing and, yes, beautiful having happened.

It is a game whose outcomes cannot be predicted accurately over any length of time; a bad team beats a better team for no predictable reason.

I grew up with it, never questioning that there was any alternative but to embrace its grace and beauty and attraction; it came with my family name. You may say this could apply in the same way to a religion or a extremist group or somesuch. You would be right, more than likely. Football is a powerful beast and far more interesting than goosesteping around the place hoping to string up someone who you don't like the look of.

I could go on. I am going on a bit, so forgive me.
I like baseball plenty but living over here I don't see much of it. The middle of the night isn't conducive to learning the subtleties and the subtext of anything much less a sport with great history and tradition.

What I like about both sports are a great many things. The least important is the ugliness so I'll talk about that a little.

Baseball players are generally, as far as I can see, Ugly. A lot seem chubby too and they all have The Big Ass.
Football players are (and should be) Ugly. The best ones have to be. Uglier the better. Though fatness is not recommended.

I don't know baseball well but I know from Ugly. Randy Johnson: Ugly, Mark McGwire (ginger and Ugly). I'm sure you all have your favourites and I'm sure 95% will not be lookers.

Same goes for Football. The greats are Ugly. Look at the recent crop of terrific players: Rivaldo (Ugly; great left peg), Ronaldo (Ugly & chubby), Zidane (bald for christ's sake) and one of my all time favourites: Peter Beardsley. Ask google to find some pictures of him. Not an oil painting but a magical footballer.

My point, all those words ago:
Football wins for me.

Thanks for your patience.

tmidgett wrote:i'm not a chess player, but if this is so, why do some chess experts seem to know if certain games among top players have been lost after the fifth or sixth move? is this grandstanding?

It's not grandstanding - but between players of rougly equivalent abilities, this sort of thing only happens when someone makes a big mistake early in the game.

In chess, one or the other player always has the "advantage." White always has the first advantage, since white moves first; but after the first few moves, the advantage stays pretty fluid, as players sacrifice pieces for better position etc. If two good players (the kind who generally don't make mistakes) are playing, and one of them makes a bad move - say, loses a piece without gaining anything by it - the other player gains a huge advantage, and the likelihood of their giving up that advantage is mighty slim. With good players, even a very slight advantage, maintained throughout a game, means the player with the advantage will have, say, an extra pawn or two during the endgame - more than enough to make winning certain.

These are lousy games though, and very rare with good players - it means someone who almost never screws up has screwed up badly.

Of course, with equivalent baseball teams, no game is a write-off after the first three innings, unless there's lots of injuries or whatever - and even then, it's possible. Good chess games, though, where advantage is getting traded back and forth and no obvious mistakes are being made, have a remarkable tension.

Chess is more like basketball.

chuckles wrote:Baseball players are generally, as far as I can see, Ugly. A lot seem chubby too and they all have The Big Ass.

I'd kill my mother to look like Carl Pavano, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Tim Hudson, Troy Glaus, Richie Sexson or Kyle Farnsworth for a day.

Those guys are some handsome sons of bitches. I cannot imagine what kind of consistent wool they pull.

tmidgett wrote:i'm not a chess player, but if this is so, why do some chess experts seem to know if certain games among top players have been lost after the fifth or sixth move? is this grandstanding?

I'm not sure, second guessing takes place in any competition that has spectators. A lot more people can tell if a bad move has been made in baseball than in chess. Chess is more complex. It has finite parameters and a seemingly endless amount of combination of moves that become increasingly dependent on the choices your opponent makes. In basball, moves are much more predetermined according to personnel and situation(Bring the infield in when there's a runner at 3rd and less than two outs, throw a breaking pitch to a hitter who is behind in the count 0-2, intentionally walk Barry Bonds every chance you get especially now that the rest of the lineup sucks).

stewie wrote:OK, serious question - do you guys (Brad, tmidgett, etc...the baseball fans) believe that all the meat-head jocks that watch this game in bars and shout like apes at screens really know what's going on, or are they just in yeah-let's-drink-and-shout-support-the-local-team jock mode?

Ofcourse the meat-head ape jocks know whats going on, they grow up playing the game, its "sophisticated" nuances and strategy has been drilled in their heads at a very early age. Otherwise you or I wouldn't assume they were jocks. The thing is, when I go to a bar, I'm more interested in getting hammered and shouting with friends than wondering if a play is gonna be a hit and run or a straight steal of 2nd base. I'll try to do both, but the inebriation usually wins.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:

chuckles wrote:Baseball players are generally, as far as I can see, Ugly. A lot seem chubby too and they all have The Big Ass.

I'd kill my mother to look like Carl Pavano, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Tim Hudson, Troy Glaus, Richie Sexson or Kyle Farnsworth for a day.

Those guys are some handsome sons of bitches. I cannot imagine what kind of consistent wool they pull.

Bravo Bradley R. Weissenberger! These are some so-honest thoughts!

So easy to not notice aloud the man is good looking for fear of to be called "mamone" or "mezzo-uomo" or some kind of little bird with plumage.

I have seen these Kyle Farnsworth in a casino with these Cubs ball-players, and although I don't want it, If our God has to made me be a woman, no doubt I would tarnish my good name with him. But I don't want it, you understand. I am happy to be another man and not woman for him.

But there were many the Puerto Riquenas in semicircle around him all the time. All waiting for the giant finger to point them and to say "You, come to the room and soil your honor for me!" So many! So much soil the honors!

To be young and baseball player and with so many money and the Puerto Riquenas and the formaggio duro di novanta-cinque --no! -- cento miglio all'ora (Cento! Porco Dio!) so would be good a life!

So Bradley R. Weissenberger, these are true envy of our minds. To say it is first to admit to the world: okay, these Kyle Farnsworth, maybe he give up the crucial game-blowing gopher time-to-time, but he is good looking man.

Ciao, bradley. And to your mama, long life! This is our place in the world, to not be so handsome or to have the (cento!) fromaggia duro. We are to like many things about the baseball, but not to live it.

But it would be nice, si? Si.

Ciao!

His teammates refer to Barry Zito's house as "The Stabbin' Cabin." This was apparently going to be mentioned in "Moneyball" but got edited out.

I've always found Mike Mussina attractive. Pre-Jesus Johnny Damon is hot too. He doesn't even look too bad in Passion mode.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:I'd kill my mother to look like... Richie Sexson... for a day.

I've always thought that Richie Sexson bears a resemblence to Dynomutt.

There is no doubt that baseball is far superior to soccer on all fronts. I think the Simpson's episode where Homer goes to the soccer match did a perfect job of expressing the majority of us who view soccer as a painfully boring sport to watch.

KENT BROCKMAN: "Center passes to the half-back. He holds it... Holds it... Holds it... And passes it back to the center who holds it... Holds it... (SIGH) Holds it... And passes it back to the half-back. ETC...

I appreciate soccer players' athletic ability and how they're able to run endlessly through any weather condition. I just hope they can appreciate why I'd prefer to stick a lobster fork in my eyeball than endure watching a three-hour-long 0-0 marathon of back and forth monotony.

BASEBALL, on the other hand, is pure drama. It bleeds from every pitch, put-out, pop-up, pinch-hitter and peanut vendor's arm.

It’s the two-strike check-swing appeal to the first base ump with bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth.
It’s the 1-2 four-seamer under the chin.
It’s the left fielder reaching back to find the fence on a deep fly ball.
It’s a 3-0 green light.
It’s the slow roller to third, the stretch at first and the catcher backing up.
It’s checking the sun between pitches.
It’s a no-hitter into the 7th.
It’s a foul ball towards your section, your row, your seat…
It’s explaining what a double switch is to your girlfriend, keeping score with your dad and playing mound-ball with your buddies to see who buys the next round of Bud Lights.
It's a pinch-hit double to lead off the bottom of the 13th.
It’s checking the flags to see which way the wind’s blowing when walking up to the stadium.
It’s watching the scoreboard to see who lost.
It’s that fraction-of-a-second of dead silence just after an opposing team’s slugger connects deep.
It’s bringing in the closer.
It’s facing the closer.
It’s tagging up at third on a routine fly ball.
It’s the pitch-out, the back-door slide piece and the hanging curve the pitcher got away with in the late innings.
It's waving him home with two outs in the ninth.
It’s moving the runner over, breaking up two and getting inside someone’s head.
It's freezing him on a fastball painting the corner.
It's guessing right on a 2-2 slider.
It’s bringing the infield in.
It's staying up till past midnight when your team's on the coast.
And it’s the potential of witnessing a never-to-be-forgotten moment on any given pitch, during any given inning, of any given game, on any given day of spring, summer or early fall.


Soccer is a ball that 22 players chase for two hours and thousands hope to see shot on goal more than 3 times a game.

Well, there's also the Simpsons episode where Homer is at a baseball game cold sober and Harry Shearer is doing his great Vin Scully impersonation: "Wait, now there's a beach ball coming on to the field!" And Homer says "I never realized how utterly boring this sport is."

The great thing about baseball is that it's broken down into four essential tasks that are completely unrelated to one another- hitting, fielding, pitching, and managing.

"Baseball is like church. Many attend, but few understand." -Wes Westrum