By Nicholas Proch
After watching the first Sunday of the NFL season, I can wholeheartedly say that I was disappointed. It may be because I am a New York Giants fan, a team that was an embarrassment this week, but it transcends beyond winning and losing. The NFL has become boring. It’s predictable and extremely frustrating to watch as a sports fan.
Most people, who are not baseball fans, would make a similar argument of the MLB. ‘How can you watch such a slow paced game?’ ‘Do you really enjoy suffering through a 4-hour Red Sox – Yankees game?’ These are examples of things people really say to me when I get defensive of the great sport.
The reason that one cannot sit through a baseball game is because they may not really understand what is going on. There is a plethora of statistics and situational strategies that come into play before, during and after every pitch. That is why baseball has had such staying power. It’s also the reason that the rest of the sporting world takes a backseat to baseball come October every year.
If you actually think back and listen to the broadcasts that some of us can hear in our heads, how many of those are football commentary? I can still remember the Giants last Superbowl victory (over the Patriots several years ago), but I cannot seem to hear the play calls in my head.
In 2004, I was 14 years old. But I can still hear every sound of that World Series clinching victory for the Red Sox in my cerebral cavity. I can hear Joe Buck calling the play as it went ‘back to Foulke.’ It is worth noting that this was announced by the same broadcaster as the Superbowl, in which I do not remember the call.
So why does baseball have such staying power in my mind and the minds of countless people around the world? Statistics. Because of the fact that fans can rattle off player batting averages, on-base percentages, home runs and so on, it keeps fans engaged. There are stats in other sports, that of course has to be said, but nothing is comparable to the amount of stats that you can research in baseball.
There are enough stats that, who before Moneyball was written wasn’t a household, Billy Beane’s persona can be the star of an upcoming movie starring Brad Pitt. This movie is about baseball statistics. We’ve deemed these numbers to be important enough that we need to pay Brad Pitt, who isn’t cheap, to star as a mediocre general manager for a despondent Oakland Athletics team.
The Oakland A’s won 103 games that year on a team budget the size of Alex Rodriguez’s yearly salary. The cause is highly debated. Was it Billy Beane’s mastering of the statistical system or the fact that they had three of the best pitchers in baseball on their staff? While there will be no indisputable reason, as is the nature in sports, the debate alone, and others like this, will keep baseball ahead of the competition.
This is all brings me back to my original point. Baseball will remain the major sport in America for a long time as long as we are concerned with what is actually happening beyond tackling and non-stop action for two hours. Until football and basketball, and even hockey, can realize that sports are more than just athleticism and showings of strength, they will never achieve the moniker of ‘America’s Favorite Pastime.’
