yambag023 wrote:
EvoSero wrote:
And if they just aren't a fan of baseball, well, so what? The game is far too slow paced, the season is far too long, and the playoffs are far too exclusive. Some of it's highest paid players only play once every 6-10 days, the players in the dugout seem like they can barely stay awake, and you could watch a 3-hour game only to see a couple base hits and a horrible walk.
Then look at The Bigs, and it helps remove all that filler for anyone who isn't Billy Crystal's soul mate.
long season? yes. however i think football is a little short. i think 100 games in baseball would be perfect, MAYBE 125.
game is slow paced? if you were a fan (whcih i understand you arent) you would understand and apreciate everything that goes into a game and NOT make it boring.
highest paid players play every 6-10 days??? that would apply MAYBE to starters. regular players play consistantly.
billy crystal soulmate? i would love to have you explain this one. thanks.
Before getting a little into the subjectivity of it, you have to understand that a lot of the reasons why things are the way they are in sport isn't for the benefit of the sport, but for revenue.
More games means more revenue means more advertising, etc. The sport itself doesn't benefit from commercial breaks or long seasons or the start times for games.
To compare to football, at least every game matters that much more. With baseball, probably the biggest factor is that only 8 of 30 teams make the playoffs, with the first round being only a best-of-5.
If 16 teams made the playoffs like in the NBA or NHL - both of which have 82 game seasons with four rounds of playoffs each best-of-7 series - then at least you wouldn't have the majority of teams playing 162 games when their season is essentially over by the All-Star game. Even if only 12 made the playoffs, it's still a step up from 8.
Throw on top of that that the divisions are totally lopsided, and the playoff seeding just makes the 162 games even more insignificant. I'm in Toronto, and it's hard to care that much when your team is in arguably the hardest division in all of pro sports - save for maybe the NFL's NFC East - year after year in a league where it's impossible for more than two teams in a division to make the playoffs.
Add in that you have many players that don't even play every game (whether hitters or pitchers), that most teams end up essentially .500 despite the high number of games, that games last around 3 hours despite an overly high amount of that time being stoppages in play, and it's not so much that the sport is bad (I love playing baseball) but just what baseball is as the MLB presents it to us is what I find highly flawed.
Either way, I love playing baseball video games, too. So if that's what the OP is referring to, I still say, so what?
yambag023 wrote:
billy crystal soulmate? i would love to have you explain this one. thanks.
Billy Crystal - along with Larry King - was just an example of a well-known person who just has a far above average passion for baseball.
Thing is that when you have people like that, the things they like about baseball are often things not entirely relevant, such as childhood associations or the fascination/obsession with the statistical aspect of the sport.
