by Ice Cream Jonsey » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:02 am
Then you post something like that and TOTALLY REDEEDM YOURSELF.
I've been thinking about baseball versus football for a couple days now. Here's what I've come up with, at random:
1) Time investment. 162 games times 3 hours equals... ah.. it equals almost ten times as many hours as I need to spend on football in my life. Do you like how I didn't bother to include any possible playoff games in that comparison? Yeah me too.
2) Access. Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can not remember the last time ESPN had the Blue Jays on as the game of the week or whatnot. I've caught the occasional game on a weird-ass network, but then you're listening to the homer announcers. Actually, that requires its own section. But by saying it's self-fulfilling: I get the NFL Ticket, so I get all the Saints games, but I have not made a similar commitment to Extra Innings.
3) Chances my team has at doing something. OK, here's the thing, and this is going to come off as retarded to the average fan of both sports. I honestly think that the Saints have had a greater chance at winning a championship than the Blue Jays since 1994, even though a casual look at the standings indicates a bunch of 3-13 and 6-10 seasons for the Saints. The thing is, due to the sheer amount of teams that get into the playoffs in football and how big-market teams don't dominate, the Saints' season is alive a lot longer than the Jays.
4) Salary cap. I cannot fucking stand seeing the same teams gobble up all the "good" players. It fills me with a rage that has really turned me off to the sport. Sure, I think it's hilarious that a sports team spent, as you said, literally a BILLION dollars in the last few years and do not have a ring to show for it, but they are still, along with Boston, squeezing my team out of a playoff spot. More, there's no apologies and a lot of fans think that things are GOOD as they are now.
5) The lack of overdone statistical analysis. I wrote this on Caltrops, but it bears repeating. I really get tired of website that try to convince you that Andre Dawson wasn't that good because he didn't walk very often or that Josh Phelps is going to be a breakout player based on which minor league player he's most likely to emulate. There are some sites trying to do it for football, but here's my thing with football - it goes back to the short season. In 2001 the Saints were coming off their first playoff victory. They were 7-5 and well placed to make a playoff run. At that point, depending on who you ask, Joe Horn, Joe Johnson and/or Jim Haslett had sex with Willie Roaf's ex-stripper wife. The team goes into complete disarray and finished 7-9, losing each of the last four games by an average of 40-10. You find me a stat and some alphabet soup acronym to demonstrate how likely a team is to free fall when your star DE fucks your star LT's wife. Anyway, the constant statting of things bugs me. Baseball Prospectus even projects stats at a, what, 50%, 75% and 100% projection. If you make more than one guess it's not a projection! It really gets old seeing them pat themselves on the back choosing the appropriate projection that most makes their articles look good. I hate all of it.
6) Announcers. OK, before I forget - they are terrible in football, but they are even worse in baseball. The fact that the "PUT IT ON THE BOARD!!!!" guys for the White Sox got to see a championship in their lifetime... that just puts a damper on the sport as a whole, eh?
7) Player departments. Just a personal thing. I like that an enormously overweight pig, a track star, a diminutive piece of Eurotrash and a balding kid from middle America that can read defenses can all combine together to form the basis of a winning football team. No matter your background, you always have a place in football, unless you're hispanic.
8) Video games. There is no baseball game 1/1,000,000th as good as Front Page Sports: Football 98. Shit, there is no baseball game as good as NHL '98, either. (Nothing magical about 1998, I only just realized that.) I hate to say it, but I am bound to be more interested in a sport if I am playing fake version of it and merging it with my inane love of computer games at the same time.
Ah, shit that's all I got. That being said, we could be a few months away from post-season Toronto baseball, and I can't fucking wait.
Then you post something like that and TOTALLY REDEEDM YOURSELF.
I've been thinking about baseball versus football for a couple days now. Here's what I've come up with, at random:
[b]1) Time investment.[/b] 162 games times 3 hours equals... ah.. it equals almost ten times as many hours as I need to spend on football in my life. Do you like how I didn't bother to include any possible playoff games in that comparison? Yeah me too.
[b]2) Access.[/b] Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can not remember the last time ESPN had the Blue Jays on as the game of the week or whatnot. I've caught the occasional game on a weird-ass network, but then you're listening to the homer announcers. Actually, that requires its own section. But by saying it's self-fulfilling: I get the NFL Ticket, so I get all the Saints games, but I have not made a similar commitment to Extra Innings.
[b]3) Chances my team has at doing something.[/b] OK, here's the thing, and this is going to come off as retarded to the average fan of both sports. I honestly think that the Saints have had a greater chance at winning a championship than the Blue Jays since 1994, even though a casual look at the standings indicates a bunch of 3-13 and 6-10 seasons for the Saints. The thing is, due to the sheer amount of teams that get into the playoffs in football and how big-market teams don't dominate, the Saints' season is alive a lot longer than the Jays.
[b]4) Salary cap.[/b] I cannot fucking [i]stand[/i] seeing the same teams gobble up all the "good" players. It fills me with a rage that has really turned me off to the sport. Sure, I think it's hilarious that a sports team spent, as you said, literally a BILLION dollars in the last few years and do not have a ring to show for it, but they are still, along with Boston, squeezing my team out of a playoff spot. More, there's no apologies and a lot of fans think that things are GOOD as they are now.
[b]5) The lack of overdone statistical analysis.[/b] I wrote this on Caltrops, but it bears repeating. I really get tired of website that try to convince you that Andre Dawson wasn't that good because he didn't walk very often or that Josh Phelps is going to be a breakout player based on which minor league player he's most likely to emulate. There are some sites trying to do it for football, but here's my thing with football - it goes back to the short season. In 2001 the Saints were coming off their first playoff victory. They were 7-5 and well placed to make a playoff run. At that point, depending on who you ask, Joe Horn, Joe Johnson and/or Jim Haslett had sex with Willie Roaf's ex-stripper wife. The team goes into complete disarray and finished 7-9, losing each of the last four games by an average of 40-10. You find me a stat and some alphabet soup acronym to demonstrate how likely a team is to free fall when your star DE fucks your star LT's wife. Anyway, the constant statting of things bugs me. Baseball Prospectus even projects stats at a, what, 50%, 75% and 100% projection. If you make more than one guess it's not a projection! It really gets old seeing them pat themselves on the back choosing the appropriate projection that most makes their articles look good. I hate all of it.
[b]6) Announcers.[/b] OK, before I forget - they are terrible in football, but they are even worse in baseball. The fact that the "PUT IT ON THE BOARD!!!!" guys for the White Sox got to see a championship in their lifetime... that just puts a damper on the sport as a whole, eh?
[b]7) Player departments.[/b] Just a personal thing. I like that an enormously overweight pig, a track star, a diminutive piece of Eurotrash and a balding kid from middle America that can read defenses can all combine together to form the basis of a winning football team. No matter your background, you always have a place in football, unless you're hispanic.
[b]8) Video games.[/b] There is no baseball game 1/1,000,000th as good as Front Page Sports: Football 98. Shit, there is no baseball game as good as NHL '98, either. (Nothing magical about 1998, I only just realized that.) I hate to say it, but I am bound to be more interested in a sport if I am playing fake version of it and merging it with my inane love of computer games at the same time.
Ah, shit that's all I got. That being said, we could be a few months away from post-season Toronto baseball, and I can't fucking wait.