Everyone's entitled to like or dislike what they want. I think the debate about "athletes" is laughable. The fact is all these sports have great athletes. All of them have guys who aren't that athletic as well. Are you going to tell me that Peyton Manning is a great athlete? That Sid Bream was a great athlete? Gheorghe Muresan?

 

There are some linemen in football who are remarkably athletic for men their size. The DB's and WR's are freakish athletes by any measure. Guys like Kobe and Lebron are freak athletes. Baseball has its share.

 

What is the measure of athleticism?

 

Who cares if there's 11 minutes of action in a football game? That's a stupid argument.

 

The fact is I enjoy pretty much all of these sports. I enjoy all the unique aspects of each sport.

 

Baseball can be remarkably intense and compelling, while by "action" standards giving you little or nothing.

^ Great stuff. Totally agree.

I like baseball, hockey, and college basketball, but I love football. For this discussion, I equate baseball much more with a chess match. Football is a war.

 

In the words of the late George Carlin:

 

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.

Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

 

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

 

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.

Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

 

In football you wear a helmet.

In baseball you wear a cap.

 

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?

Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

 

In football you receive a penalty.

In baseball you make an error.

 

In football the specialist comes in to kick.

In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

 

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.

Baseball has the sacrifice.

 

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...

In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

 

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.

Football has the two minute warning.

 

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.

Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

 

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.

In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

 

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

 

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

 

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

The debate can end here as BGP itself proves what sport is king.

 

Football - Threads: 24,932 Posts: 550,947

 

Baseball - Threads: 7,491 Posts: 71,479

 

Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track & Cross Country - Threads: 1,113 Posts: 6,901

 

Golf, Soccer, Volleyball - Threads: 1,051 Posts: 9,176

 

Wrestling - Threads: 200 Posts: 1,384

 

 

Game over.

I like baseball, hockey, and college basketball, but I love football. For this discussion, I equate baseball much more with a chess match. Football is a war.

 

In the words of the late George Carlin:

 

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.

Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

 

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

 

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.

Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

 

In football you wear a helmet.

In baseball you wear a cap.

 

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?

Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

 

In football you receive a penalty.

In baseball you make an error.

 

In football the specialist comes in to kick.

In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

 

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.

Baseball has the sacrifice.

 

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...

In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

 

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.

Football has the two minute warning.

 

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.

Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

 

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.

In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

 

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

 

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

 

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

Classic bit and to the point! Well done, Swampy! :clap:

^ Let's be fair. The thread was never about which is more popular. It was about which can be objectively said to be "better" whatever that means. It's also something I'm not sure can be done, though that's a nice run at it by Carlin.

 

I also enjoy this one...

 

Everyone's entitled to like or dislike what they want. I think the debate about "athletes" is laughable. The fact is all these sports have great athletes. All of them have guys who aren't that athletic as well. Are you going to tell me that Peyton Manning is a great athlete? That Sid Bream was a great athlete? Gheorghe Muresan?

 

There are some linemen in football who are remarkably athletic for men their size. The DB's and WR's are freakish athletes by any measure. Guys like Kobe and Lebron are freak athletes. Baseball has its share.

 

What is the measure of athleticism?

 

Who cares if there's 11 minutes of action in a football game? That's a stupid argument.

 

The fact is I enjoy pretty much all of these sports. I enjoy all the unique aspects of each sport.

 

Baseball can be remarkably intense and compelling, while by "action" standards giving you little or nothing.

In all honesty I never intended this thread this thread to be about who has the better athletes. But I did a pretty good job of getting it there. :lol:

 

I agree on the unique aspects to each sport and that's why I watch so many different sports.

 

Sorry...11 minutes of action argument isn't stupid. If someone tells me football is packed with action and I can point out that in that three hours or so there are only 11 minutes of what qualifies as "action" then I think it's a very fair point. Anyone who thinks differently I say is thinking foolishly or just doesn't want to acknowledge something that makes a key portion of an argument null and void...

 

I just mainly get tired of hearing from everyone that football is the greatest thing ever.

The debate can end here as BGP itself proves what sport is king.

 

Football - Threads: 24,932 Posts: 550,947

 

Baseball - Threads: 7,491 Posts: 71,479

 

Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track & Cross Country - Threads: 1,113 Posts: 6,901

 

Golf, Soccer, Volleyball - Threads: 1,051 Posts: 9,176

 

Wrestling - Threads: 200 Posts: 1,384

 

 

Game over.

Popularity doesn't equate greatness.

Popularity doesn't equate greatness.

BGP knows greatness. :lol:

I love to watch football.

 

I enjoy watching college basketball.

 

I like going to professional baseball games but only in large groups so that I can have someone to talk to during the game. I find the sport itself boring.

 

I NEVER watch real wrestling on TV nor would I go to a match if I didn't have to. I have been to several high school matches and I find it to be very boring to watch.

 

I would rather poke myself in the eye with sharp sticks, over and over again then watch soccer.

I would rather poke myself in the eye with sharp sticks, over and over again then watch soccer.

:lol:

This is interesting. Everyone is talking about how they don't like this sport or that sport because it's boring and nothing ever happens. If a neutral observer with no sports knowledge happened upon this thread, I think the only thing they'd come away with is that sports are all terrible because nothing ever happens in any of them.

This is interesting. Everyone is talking about how they don't like this sport or that sport because it's boring and nothing ever happens. If a neutral observer with no sports knowledge happened upon this thread, I think the only thing they'd come away with is that sports are all terrible because nothing ever happens in any of them.

Same thing with music threads. It all comes town to personal taste, really.

True story.

 

I had a roommate in college from a wide place in the road called Omaha in Knott County. Great guy. We both started in the fall of 1973 at Morehead. By the time he was my roomie in the fall of 1977, I was a graduate student and he was a fifth-year sophomore. He was a HUGE UK basketball and NY Yankees baseball fan (it's been my experience that there are a lot of those out there). Didn't care for football. Even with that glaring character defect, we got on famously. Lived in a trailer out in Clearfield. Terrible winter - we had no water for five weeks at one stretch. Lots of yellow snow. All true.

 

Late winter of 1978 we had a long weekend - President's Day, I think. We drove to my home in the suburbs of Baltimore. I asked him if he would like to go to the county wrestling tournament (Anne Arundel County is fairly populous, lots of fairly large schools where I grew up, my graduating class was 649). The only wrestling he had ever seen to that point involved Hungarian Lip Locks, Flying Leg Kicks, etc.).

 

Anyway, we went to the first round of the tournament. He was astonished, he was hooked, he loved it. Loved it so much that he insisted that we go back the next night for the second round matches rather than go bar-hopping. Believe me when I tell you that demonstrated just how into the wrestling matches he was - an opportunity to go bar-hopping on the weekend in Baltimore is not something that he would have turned down without something extraordinarily compelling to take its place. That and his status as a fifth-year sophomore were in my mind, at least indirectly related.

 

Of course, what he loved was the one-on-one competition. That's what is so appealing about amateur wrestling to those of us that participated. You against one other guy. Yes, there was a team aspect, and the team won or lost as a result of the individual matches; but it was first and foremost an individual test of strength, skill and endurance.

 

And I forget what my point was going to be.

Oh yeah - football IS the greatest sport (thread title), but give me wrestling as an individual test.

 

And that's coming from someone who really does not like MMA at all. The whole business of guys mounting other guys - not that there's anything wrong with that - just hits me the wrong way.