calamarichris

With the boring civil society bubble that we all live in, that's the kind of tragedy and beauty that makes sports remotely interesting. I hope he landed on his feet. (Ah crud, I'm being boring again.)

tomato coupe

Sure, but this not unique to the game of baseball. Many sports involve similar tactical battles.

Eric F 

I never claimed it was unique to baseball, and I agree about other sports. Regardless of the sport, understanding the subtleties tend to significantly improves one's enjoyment of watching it.

smd4

Baseball has things that are unique to it.

genejockey 

De gustibus non est disputandum, and yet here we are 8 pages later.

mstateglfr 

Could there have been an outside factor which influenced attendance numbers and suppressed the 2021 season's overall numbers? Perhaps if there was an outside factor, that should be considered when arguing over what caused attendance increases in the last 2 seasons.

tomato coupe

Sure, but thinking is not one of those things.

smd4

Yes, it is.

tomato coupe

No other sport involves thinking? Your argument has now entered the realm of ludicrous.

smd4

Lots of sports rely on pure gut reaction to what's happening in the moment.

Koyote

Oh, I understand that. I was just suggesting (rather too obliquely, apparently) to the other poster that "scoring" means different things in different sports -- and in the ultimate scoring metric, baseball is rather simple as compared to some other sports. After all, in basketball, for instance, the mere act of throwing the ball through the net can score 1, 2, or 3 points, depending on the circumstance. And then there are various ways to score in football, etc. Of course, none of that makes any sport inherently better or more interesting than another - they're just differences.

The most entertaining part of this thread is that the poster repeatedly refuses to place the words "I think" in front of the statement "soccer is boring" -- as if his opinion is (or should be) universal. I could chalk it up to poor communication skills, but it's so chronic.

smd4

C'mon. I'm writing my posts. If you can't figure out that what I write is my opinion, then there's really nothing left to say to you.

Which is why I understood (with no hand-holding) that when you wrote the "universal" proclamation that "Disc Brakes are Great!" without a qualifier, I knew it was your own opinion.

Eric F 

I'm a pretty big fan of baseball, but I have to agree with this.

Eric F 

"Gut reaction" is actually evaluating the current situation, recognizing the available options, making a decision, and attempting to execute. The higher the level of play, the faster that process happens, and (often) the more options are available to evaluate. This happens in baseball, too.

choddo

You claim to know that people are running all over the place with no plan.

Which, considering the gulf in tactical, coaching and man(/woman) management skill that marks the best teams and leaders out from the ones that only last months or even weeks, is a farcical statement. But I know you’re only taking the pi$$. And I know baseball involves more than just runs.

PeteHski

How do you even know what is involved in other sports that you are clearly ignorant of?

Most sports I know involve a degree of both. Football (soccer) certainly does and is incredibly complex at the highest level. Elite coaches like Pep Guardiola use complex zonal systems that players can take seasons to perfect as a unit. Every movement they make is part of an intricate system to confuse their opponents and gain numerical advantage. They create an illusion of having more players and there is always one or more passing options. Each pass option creates a chain reaction and the players all know who is moving where. The shape of the team morphs when in and out of possession.

Of course to you they are all just running around randomly like headless chickens.

Maelochs

If you think that, you have never tired to play a sport or have never succeeded at much ... including logic.

If you think every sport is played by quick-twitch morons ... yeah, except ... it is the quick-twitch, high-cordination, Smart guys who win. In high school sports you can succeed with just physical prowess. Get past high school, and the pool of superb physical specimens gets weeded down by which ones can think. Go to the pro level, and intelligence is much more importance. The players---including lineman, who like like brainless meat-tanks---who study game film, learn their own and other teams' play books, who learn about all the thought that goes into any sport .... are the ones which excel. There is a huge number of people gifted with physical ability, and a tiny number of pro players (in All sports) because the smart ones use their physical abilities better.

Just like chess players memorize classic games, and know the first 20 moves of however many different strategies, and all that ....

Look at how much thought some posters put into this forum ... and most of us are mediocre riders (compared to the pro peloton.) At the pro level of Any sport, there are huge numbers of people spending huge numbers of hours thinking about the sport---looking for every edge, every "marginal gain," every old and new tactic and strategy, training method, gear choice ... and they test those ideas in play at every event. The kind of sloppy attempts at logic we see here wouldn't cut it in a competitive environment. For instance, the ludicrous idea that sport doesn't involve thinking .....

People have been thinking about soccer for who knows how long, about baseball for 150 years or so, about even curling ... because the people who love the game think about it and the people who love the games and play the games think of ways to win. The idea that millions of sports aficionados spend zero time thinking about their favorite sports is ... well, it wouldn't survive if thinking was a sport.

I love curling ... I like soccer, I like "gridiron" (as our friends from Oz call it,) and baseball can be good... but with say, baseball .... if you get an announcing teams which analyzes each pitch choice and tactic, Wow, is there a lot of thinking going on before that few seconds of action.

I know the rules of chess, but I cannot think ahead ten moves so when watching chess I find it hard to follow. Shoot, I like to watch pool sometimes, and good pool players envision the entire run of the table as soon as the balls stop rolling from the break. And with each shot they are using spin and speed to make the ball travel in all sorts of weird directions, including backwards. Try getting the cue ball to roll backwards and the object ball to travel in a curved path with just reflex.

Golf is a sport where there is little action and the moment of action involves just one person and the "strategy" is just to swing perfectly. "Strategy" might seem mostly "Keep it in the fairway and choose the club appropriate to the distance." Reaction ... reaction is what the player does after he hits the shot. There is no input to which the player must physically react.

So we all recognize Tiger Wood because he had great reactions? He had sharp reflexes and that was the secret of his game? Or maybe, he could read greens and lies (where the ball sits and how it will fly when hit in certain ways, he knew all the different ways he could hit a ball to make it fly in different ways, And he had mastered the thinking which allowed him to have a clear mind and pure focus when setting up for a shot, once he had calculated the best club and swing for the given lie.

Golf is a big thinking sport---and self-psychology is way more important than "reflexes," which play zero role.

Tennis is another one---player psychology is a huge part of the game. Players are not just running and hitting .. . they are also planning shots ahead, analyzing the patterns of their opponents' play, choosing where and how hard to hit to gain an edge ... and keeping one's head together is huge. I had a good talk with the mother of a pro tennis player (whose other son was a pro race driver .... ) and she said a lot about the inner struggles being the biggest part of the game ....

Even ping-pong, which is so fast it seems ridiculous to think that players think .... to people who follow the sport, they realize how ridiculous it is to think there is no thinking involved.

Whatever.

Also, Ferraris went through a long period where the was little quality control for final fit and finish ... there was a corporate culture of "we are Ferrari, you should feel honored to own our cars, and if the carpet was cut and installed badly, if the glove box won't stay shut, if there are ripples in the bodywork or flaws in the paint ... those are the signs that it was hand-crafted.

Apparently Ferrari buyers weren't that "discerning." They accepted poor quality.

Last I heard, Ferrari management realized that competition was too tough and buyers had too many options, so the cars have improved.

seypat

Post of the thread. If you've played lots of team sports at a decent level, you can really appreciate the skill it takes for futbol players(or any high level/pro in any sport) to do what they do. There's a lot of practice and commitment that goes into acquiring those skills.

seypat

As boring as it might be to watch on TV, this is the essence of golf. And it's completly dependent on the player because there's no opponent directly affecting his/her play. Are there any other sports out there which consider beta blockers a PED?

smd4

HA! I was lettering in varsity basketball while you were probably getting beaten up in home ec. (Did they even have home economics back when you were in school?) Played most of the sports you mentioned, including soccer, which is what qualifies me to state that soccer sucks. If you don’t understand how I can have such an opinion, watch that Simpsons clip again, which, as a cartoon, should be pretty easy to understand (still waiting for a critique of it. Probably won’t happen because everything in it is true). See you on the pitch!

tomato coupe

I think we’ve reached a new level of inanity when someone insists a Simpson episode makes good supporting evidence for their argument.

smd4

Simple concepts for simple minds. And my “logical” friend, please note that it wasn’t offered as “evidence.”

Steel Charlie

The answer comes from decades ago. Obviously the reviewer hasn't a clue

Combat Football

In the long-winded and somewhat renowned “The National Pastime,” Norman Spinrad goes into painstaking detail describing – from the point of view of the cynical and failed filmmaker who invents the game as a means of advancing his career with a television company – Combat Football.

It should be no surprise that Spinrad takes a Progressive approach in his critique of the violence inherent in sport. His over-the-top game taps the animal nature of an unthinking population. Whatever the story’s politics – they take a back seat to some of the more illogical or implausible features of the new game.
Changing your team name to the Buffalo Banthas doesn’t create a new sport in Science Fiction.

For one thing, the wildly popular Combat Football includes only six nationalized teams, none of which have a home city. They tour the country for the best venues, and are organized based on demographic identity:
“This way, we got a team for the spades, a team for the frustrated Middle Americans, a team for the hippies and kids, a team for the *****, a team for the ******s, and a team for the motorcycle nuts and violence freaks.”

From “The National Pastime,” by Norman Spinrad
Even less logically, fan casualties and fatalities are included in the statistics, with numbers soaring into the hundreds per game. They are played in stadiums without security. The plays are portrayed somewhat realistically as akin to American football, but the key play consistently seems to be a punch in the mouth.

Simply put, Combat Football would be unplayable in any venue outside of Spinrad’s imagination.

Eric F 

It qualifies you to state that you didn't enjoy the game...and obviously still don't. That's totally okay.

For most sports, playing at a low youth level is not the same game as upper levels. Yes, the rules are the same, and a goal is still a goal, but the level of execution and the sophistication for understanding the intricacies and nuances is massively different.

Eyes Roll

1 dead and several injured in a shooting at the victory celebration parade earlier today.