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Baseball and Football.
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Baseball is different from any other sports; very different.
For instance, in most sports you score points or goals;
in baseball you score runs.
In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by
the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts
the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch
the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player
touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally,
he's out.
Also; in Football, basketball, Volleyball, and all sports
with a ball, you score with the ball, and without the
ball you can't score. In baseball the ball prevents you
from scoring.
In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball
the team is run by a manager; and only in Baseball does
the manager (or coach) wear the same clothing the players
do. If you had ever seen John Madden in his Oakland raiders
Football uniform, you would know the reason for this custom.
Now, I've mentioned Football. baseball and Football are
the two most popular spectator sports in this country.
And, as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us
something about ourselves and our values. And maybe how
those values have changed over the last 150 years. For
those reasons, I enjoy comparing baseball and Football.
Let's see the comparision result between Baseball and
Football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastral 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 is dying.
In Football you wear a helmet.
In Baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs. "What downs is
it?"
Baseball is concerned with ups. "Who's up? Are you
up? I am not up. He is 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, pilling on,
personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness.
Base has the sacrifice.
Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, Snow,
sleet, hail, fog...can't see the game, don't know if there
is a game going on; mud on the field...can't read the
uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will
continue !
In Baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I
can't go out ! It's raining out !"
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 !"
Football is rigidly timed, and it will be end "even
if we have to go to sudden death."
In Baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's a
kind of picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low,
but there's not that much unpleasantness.
In Football, during the game in the stands, you can be
sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly
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, otherwise
known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial
assault, ridding the defense by hitting his receivers
with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he
has to use the 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 !"
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