What is your national sport?

[Pogo]

baseball is called our national past time, and when it was given that name it really was, baseball was/is a great/better sport to go and watch at the park but football translates so much better over the tv that it dwarfs baseball now

50years ago, Baseball was our national pastime with Boxing second

Today, Football is the king

Bah. Boxing isn't a sport. It's beating people up for money.

One of the oldest sports

Sorry, I can't consider a competition to be a "sport" if the objective is literally disabling your opponent. That just ain't "sporting".

Boxing is a combat sport, like MMA, and wrestling, and sword fencing, and stick fighting.

These sports require extreme physical exertion.

They are each also infinitely useful in daily life.

Especially if you are an armed guard, because a gun fight is actually also a fight.

All of that is true.

But it doesn't make them "sports". It just makes them conflict, in formalized form.

So is code duello.

If two baseball teams met and before play started one team went and beat the other team up, or otherwise disabled them from participating -- say, locked them out of the field --- that would not be 'sport' either.

 

[yiostheoy]

50years ago, Baseball was our national pastime with Boxing second

Today, Football is the king

Bah. Boxing isn't a sport. It's beating people up for money.

One of the oldest sports

Sorry, I can't consider a competition to be a "sport" if the objective is literally disabling your opponent. That just ain't "sporting".

Boxing is a combat sport, like MMA, and wrestling, and sword fencing, and stick fighting.

These sports require extreme physical exertion.

They are each also infinitely useful in daily life.

Especially if you are an armed guard, because a gun fight is actually also a fight.

All of that is true.

But it doesn't make them "sports". It just makes them conflict, in formalized form.

So is code duello.

If it makes you sweat to do it then it is a sport.

 

[Pogo]

Bah. Boxing isn't a sport. It's beating people up for money.

One of the oldest sports

Sorry, I can't consider a competition to be a "sport" if the objective is literally disabling your opponent. That just ain't "sporting".

Boxing is a combat sport, like MMA, and wrestling, and sword fencing, and stick fighting.

These sports require extreme physical exertion.

They are each also infinitely useful in daily life.

Especially if you are an armed guard, because a gun fight is actually also a fight.

All of that is true.

But it doesn't make them "sports". It just makes them conflict, in formalized form.

So is code duello.

If it makes you sweat to do it then it is a sport.

I like that qualification. Because it eliminates golf

But lots of things make you sweat that cannot be called sports. A job interview, running after the mugger who just took your wallet, a day at the beach....

I figure a sport has to involve opponents who, after the match is done, are still capable of being opponents again. A boxing match, you're just eliminating the opponent.

 

[Montrovant]

LOL, I wasn't concerned with the gender use.

Yanno, it might well have been "thinking man's game". It's been a while.

For some reason that seems more likely.

However, I was actually poking fun at what I consider the elitist attitude baseball fans sometimes get regarding the sport. The idea that baseball requires thought and strategy and other sports do not, or at least that the gap between the sports is a significant one, always amuses me.

I never took it to mean that actually.

To me it's got more to do with, for lack of better terms, "linear" and "non-linear" conceptualizing.... here we go, stream of consciousness...

In most goal-oriented sports (football, soccer, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, rugby) the play is linear movement versus the time limit. Move the ball "this" way, prevent the other team from moving it "that" way. And with one eye on the linear-time clock, it's often apparent well before the clock runs out that one team has an insurmountable lead and the conclusion becomes foregone and anticlimactic.

A line is finite. Begins at zero and ends at 100. A clock begins at 60:00 and ends at 00:00. At any point on either line you know exactly where you are and exactly how much farther you have to go.

Baseball is totally different. No clock, anything can happen even if one team appears to be way behind in what appears to be the end of the game. And on the way there any number of 'roads not taken' could have turned it out completely differently. It's got many more variables, many other "what-ifs", many more ways to score and approach play on both sides than "move the ball this way". And they even run (roughly) in a circle. As pointed out earlier it's often noted that no matter how many games you witness you'll always see something you never saw before, exactly because of those limitless choices. Many many a game has concluded in a way that most of the progression of that game did not foretell at all.

Baseball is the game of "it ain't over 'til it's over". Where a football game is so reliably three hours long that the next one can be scheduled to follow it, a baseball game could run its course in an hour and a half, or they could be out there until five AM. Nobody knows where the end of the game (or the inning, or the at-bat) is until it actually happens. Because it's not linearly constricted -- it's not finite.

Hence, more in-finite possibilities to think about. That's how I take it -- being more of an open field for analysis.

I think that's why baseball is so much more obsessed with stats. I think it's also why so much emphasis is put on an accomplishment such as a no-hitter, a perfect game or a long hitting streak --- the player managed to reach that point in spite of an infinite number of ways that could have, but this time did not, interrupt it.

So conceptually yes I think there's inarguably quite a gap.

I think you're reading a lot more into it then actually is there. Sure, it's technically possible for all sorts of things to happen in a baseball game. Most of them, of course, never do.

I'm guessing baseball games usually last within a similar time frame to other professional sports in the US. If a spectator never knew if a game would last 30 minutes or 4 hours, I can't imagine that many people would want to watch. It's hard to schedule time to watch something when you have no idea how long you'll be watching. The average baseball game time is apparently about the same as football, just over 3 hours. I don't know what kind of outliers exist for baseball, though.

You don't seem to know a whole lot about baseball, sorry. It's more than a sport; it's poetry.

FYI a three-hour baseball game would be well longer than average but they've been known to go seven, eight hours or more. That's because unlike "clocked" sports, conclusions are not based on time. That's the underlying point here. Even a half an inning can go by in five minutes or it can go on for half an hour. Depends entirely on what happens, not on what time it is. And that in itself is a whole different mindset. Like thinking in a different language.

It's funny that you say I don't know a lot about baseball, then proceed to be completely wrong about the average length of games.

With new rules introduced in 2015, average times for MLB games dropped to just under 3 hours: https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-game-average-length-increase-how-to-fix-051716
This one just puts the average time at about 3 hours: How Did Babe Ruth Change Baseball?
There are plenty of other links giving the same basic time frame, about 3 hours, usually just a bit less.

Also, saying I don't know about baseball because it is poetry is clearly silly. That is an entirely subjective, emotional opinion. More, it could be said about any sport; for that matter, it could be said about pretty much anything.

That sort of opinion is, to me, pretty indicative of the general baseball snob. "Oh, sure, other sports are fine, but baseball is so special. Those other sports are just games, but baseball is a passion, it is a chess game, it is poetry, it is [insert some other descriptive here]." It's a sport. Some like it more than others, but it is still a sport. You call it poetry, I call it too often boring. Baseball, like football, generally has little actual action. However, I would say that what action there actually is in football is far more compelling than that in baseball. And neither of them can compare to hockey, or basketball, or even soccer for time spent with actual game play going on. Those sports, like them or not, have players actually competing for most of their game time.

And to be clear, while they are still timed, playoff games in the major pro sports can continue as long as necessary to find a winner. An NHL playoff game once went into 6 overtime periods and ended after just under 3 hours of game play. The longest ever NBA game also went to 6 overtimes, although I don't know the actual final time played.

And baseball isn't the only sport without a timer determining length. Tennis is played until it is over, however long that takes.

To go back to my earlier point, though, do you think the average baseball fan would watch a regular season game lasting 6 hours during the work-week? Would the network broadcasting such a game even keep it on for that long?

 

[my2¢]

Considering all the levels the sport is played and supported here in America I'd have to place baseball as our national sport. From little leagues through college and then the many levels of professional ball, it is overwhelming. While football programs are big at high schools and major colleges beyond that it is pretty much limited to 32 professional NFL teams. I've found hockey also enjoyable at the minor league level. And it was a blast attending hockey at the college I went to in Ohio. I recall many games during intermission when they brought out "Little" Scotty Hamilton to perform.

 

[Pogo]

Yanno, it might well have been "thinking man's game". It's been a while.

For some reason that seems more likely.

However, I was actually poking fun at what I consider the elitist attitude baseball fans sometimes get regarding the sport. The idea that baseball requires thought and strategy and other sports do not, or at least that the gap between the sports is a significant one, always amuses me.

I never took it to mean that actually.

To me it's got more to do with, for lack of better terms, "linear" and "non-linear" conceptualizing.... here we go, stream of consciousness...

In most goal-oriented sports (football, soccer, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, rugby) the play is linear movement versus the time limit. Move the ball "this" way, prevent the other team from moving it "that" way. And with one eye on the linear-time clock, it's often apparent well before the clock runs out that one team has an insurmountable lead and the conclusion becomes foregone and anticlimactic.

A line is finite. Begins at zero and ends at 100. A clock begins at 60:00 and ends at 00:00. At any point on either line you know exactly where you are and exactly how much farther you have to go.

Baseball is totally different. No clock, anything can happen even if one team appears to be way behind in what appears to be the end of the game. And on the way there any number of 'roads not taken' could have turned it out completely differently. It's got many more variables, many other "what-ifs", many more ways to score and approach play on both sides than "move the ball this way". And they even run (roughly) in a circle. As pointed out earlier it's often noted that no matter how many games you witness you'll always see something you never saw before, exactly because of those limitless choices. Many many a game has concluded in a way that most of the progression of that game did not foretell at all.

Baseball is the game of "it ain't over 'til it's over". Where a football game is so reliably three hours long that the next one can be scheduled to follow it, a baseball game could run its course in an hour and a half, or they could be out there until five AM. Nobody knows where the end of the game (or the inning, or the at-bat) is until it actually happens. Because it's not linearly constricted -- it's not finite.

Hence, more in-finite possibilities to think about. That's how I take it -- being more of an open field for analysis.

I think that's why baseball is so much more obsessed with stats. I think it's also why so much emphasis is put on an accomplishment such as a no-hitter, a perfect game or a long hitting streak --- the player managed to reach that point in spite of an infinite number of ways that could have, but this time did not, interrupt it.

So conceptually yes I think there's inarguably quite a gap.

I think you're reading a lot more into it then actually is there. Sure, it's technically possible for all sorts of things to happen in a baseball game. Most of them, of course, never do.

I'm guessing baseball games usually last within a similar time frame to other professional sports in the US. If a spectator never knew if a game would last 30 minutes or 4 hours, I can't imagine that many people would want to watch. It's hard to schedule time to watch something when you have no idea how long you'll be watching. The average baseball game time is apparently about the same as football, just over 3 hours. I don't know what kind of outliers exist for baseball, though.

You don't seem to know a whole lot about baseball, sorry. It's more than a sport; it's poetry.

FYI a three-hour baseball game would be well longer than average but they've been known to go seven, eight hours or more. That's because unlike "clocked" sports, conclusions are not based on time. That's the underlying point here. Even a half an inning can go by in five minutes or it can go on for half an hour. Depends entirely on what happens, not on what time it is. And that in itself is a whole different mindset. Like thinking in a different language.

It's funny that you say I don't know a lot about baseball, then proceed to be completely wrong about the average length of games.

With new rules introduced in 2015, average times for MLB games dropped to just under 3 hours: https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-game-average-length-increase-how-to-fix-051716
This one just puts the average time at about 3 hours: How Did Babe Ruth Change Baseball?
There are plenty of other links giving the same basic time frame, about 3 hours, usually just a bit less.

Not the ones I see, they're a bit more than "a bit" under. Without really having paid attention I'd say 2.5 hours would be typical but now we're splitting hairs for no reason.

And it's not the point anyway --- the point is still that the game is not run by TIME, in contrast to the other clock-dependent ones named for comparison (football, soccer, hockey et al). That alone makes it unique among all the major spectator sports. I thought I was emphasizing that point; apparently not enough. Besides which, you just admitted you were "guessing".

Also, saying I don't know about baseball because it is poetry is clearly silly. That is an entirely subjective, emotional opinion. More, it could be said about any sport; for that matter, it could be said about pretty much anything.

I didn't give that as a causation. Again you seem to want to color what I posted out of some predetermined prejudice, which you'll demonstrate directly in your next sentence ---

That sort of opinion is, to me, pretty indicative of the general baseball snob. "Oh, sure, other sports are fine, but baseball is so special. Those other sports are just games, but baseball is a passion, it is a chess game, it is poetry, it is [insert some other descriptive here]." It's a sport. Some like it more than others, but it is still a sport. You call it poetry, I call it too often boring. Baseball, like football, generally has little actual action. However, I would say that what action there actually is in football is far more compelling than that in baseball. And neither of them can compare to hockey, or basketball, or even soccer for time spent with actual game play going on. Those sports, like them or not, have players actually competing for most of their game time.

And there it is, QED --- now you've devolved to emotionally-based subjective analysis. You "called it too often boring", which is why your agenda here has been to denigrate it. That's what's driving you to assess "snobbery". I gave a thoughtful, emotion-free analysis of what sets the game apart, and you choose to interpret that with emotions. That ball is in your court.

And to be clear, while they are still timed, playoff games in the major pro sports can continue as long as necessary to find a winner. An NHL playoff game once went into 6 overtime periods and ended after just under 3 hours of game play. The longest ever NBA game also went to 6 overtimes, although I don't know the actual final time played.

Yeah yeah whatever. A normal game/match does not go on indefinitely according to the action. A baseball game does; a tennis match does. That's exactly what I'm saying makes them a different mental excursion. That IS an alternative paradigm, regardless what anyone feels about it emotionally. You can prefer it or not prefer it as you like, but you can't deny it simply works differently.

A football game that's tied when the clock runs out and is therefore sent into "sudden death" overtime gets more interesting, exactly because it then becomes more like baseball --- the end of the game will be determined by what happens. And yet it still falls short, since one team may never get the chance to score, where in baseball if one team scores, the other always gets a chance to answer. And sometimes they do, and sometimes it's yet another tie, and the game goes on some more.

And baseball isn't the only sport without a timer determining length. Tennis is played until it is over, however long that takes.

Yes indeed, already noted above. I've actually had tennis in the back of my head the whole time (another favourite sport of mine), although I haven't brought it in since it can't qualify under the OP's initial question as a "national" sport. Other such sports exist without a clock but none that can be considered a "national sport".

To go back to my earlier point, though, do you think the average baseball fan would watch a regular season game lasting 6 hours during the work-week? Would the network broadcasting such a game even keep it on for that long?

The media broadcasting the game does indeed keep it on for the duration. Never seen an exception. If it's five AM, then that's simply what time it is, batter up. How long a fan watches it is strictly up to them. I've abandoned a baseball game in the sixth inning in the afternoon because I didn't like how it was developing. I've also seen games finally concluded in the wee hours of the morning with satisfactory results.

As I said, "anything can happen". And that's what makes it more of whatever the word is that you won't take as 'snobbery' that has to do with how the mind works. But I don't know what that word is.

 

[Unkotare]

Here in France they say it's baseball your national sport, is this true?

baseball is called our national past time, and when it was given that name it really was, baseball was/is a great/better sport to go and watch at the park but football translates so much better over the tv that it dwarfs baseball now

50years ago, Baseball was our national pastime with Boxing second

Today, Football is the king

Bah. Boxing isn't a sport. It's beating people up for money.

Pussy bullshit. What passes for ‘man’ these days...

 

[Montrovant]

Not the ones I see, they're a bit more than "a bit" under. Without really having paid attention I'd say 2.5 hours would be typical but now we're splitting hairs for no reason.

And it's not the point anyway --- the point is still that the game is not run by TIME, in contrast to the other clock-dependent ones named for comparison (football, soccer, hockey et al). That alone makes it unique among all the major spectator sports. I thought I was emphasizing that point; apparently not enough. Besides which, you just admitted you were "guessing".

Actually, I never said anything about guessing in the post you quoted here. That was a previous post. In this one, what I did was provided links showing that baseball games do, on average, last about 3 hours.

I didn't give that as a causation. Again you seem to want to color what I posted out of some predetermined prejudice, which you'll demonstrate directly in your next sentence ---

Your exact quote was this:

You don't seem to know a whole lot about baseball, sorry. It's more than a sport; it's poetry.

That was a paragraph by itself. It may not directly claim causation, but it pretty clearly implies it. If I knew a whole lot about baseball, I'd know that it is more than a sport; it's poetry.

And there it is, QED --- now you've devolved to emotionally-based subjective analysis. You "called it too often boring", which is why your agenda here has been to denigrate it. That's what's driving you to assess "snobbery". I gave a thoughtful, emotion-free analysis of what sets the game apart, and you choose to interpret that with emotions. That ball is in your court.

You are the one who began the subjective, emotionally-based analysis by calling baseball poetry. I was merely engaging in the same thing. My "agenda" has not been to denigrate baseball, or I would have simply done that. I was, instead, refuting the concept of baseball as so much more cerebral, requiring more intelligence, being the "thinking man's game," as you brought up and I have heard quite a few times before from baseball aficionados. That very phrase, "thinking man's game," is a backhanded denigration of fans of every other sport: if baseball is the thinking man's game, other games are for those who do not think.

Calling baseball poetry is not "a thoughtful, emotion-free analysis." It is the opposite. If you honestly think calling a sport poetry is emotion-free, you are being dishonest either with me or yourself.

Yeah yeah whatever. A normal game/match does not go on indefinitely according to the action. A baseball game does; a tennis match does. That's exactly what I'm saying makes them a different mental excursion. That IS an alternative paradigm, regardless what anyone feels about it emotionally. You can prefer it or not prefer it as you like, but you can't deny it simply works differently.

A football game that's tied when the clock runs out and is therefore sent into "sudden death" overtime gets more interesting, exactly because it then becomes more like baseball --- the end of the game will be determined by what happens. And yet it still falls short, since one team may never get the chance to score, where in baseball if one team scores, the other always gets a chance to answer. And sometimes they do, and sometimes it's yet another tie, and the game goes on some more.

Football is the worst example of the major sports with regards to game length. I gave examples of hockey and basketball games which lasted for quite a long time, but you focused on football. Why is that? In both basketball and hockey, each team has a chance to score in any overtime.

The media broadcasting the game does indeed keep it on for the duration. Never seen an exception. If it's five AM, then that's simply what time it is, batter up. How long a fan watches it is strictly up to them. I've abandoned a baseball game in the sixth inning in the afternoon because I didn't like how it was developing. I've also seen games finally concluded in the wee hours of the morning with satisfactory results.

As I said, "anything can happen". And that's what makes it more of whatever the word is that you won't take as 'snobbery' that has to do with how the mind works. But I don't know what that word is.

As I said, anything can happen, but mostly does not. As with any sport, there are outliers and exceptions, but most contests fall within some basic, general parameters. It's possible for a regular season baseball game to go on for 10 hours, sure. If you think that's a good thing, more power to you. I disagree that the way the game is not timed makes it a more cerebral game. One could just as easily argue it makes it a less athletic game, since players can spend so much time not having to do anything; during an abnormally long at-bat, for instance, the fielders could possibly never have a ball come anywhere near them and never have to do a thing, while obviously the other team just sits in the dugout. Perhaps baseball fans feel a need to prop up other aspects of the game because baseball is the least active of the major sports.

Here's what this boils down to: While I have heard fans of all the major sports talk about why they prefer whichever sport they prefer, it is only baseball fans try to claim their chosen sport is one that requires more intelligence, so far as I can recall. That kind of claim goes toward both the players/coaches and the fans. I'm sure that I unfairly attributed some of that to you, but not entirely unfairly.

 

[rightwinger]

Football rules in the US

Now that gambling on football is legal, it will go through the roof

 

[barryqwalsh]

 

[evenflow1969]

Here in France they say it's baseball your national sport, is this true?

Use to be but football gets best ratings these days!

 

[Pogo]

You are the one who began the subjective, emotionally-based analysis by calling baseball poetry. I was merely engaging in the same thing. My "agenda" has not been to denigrate baseball, or I would have simply done that. I was, instead, refuting the concept of baseball as so much more cerebral, requiring more intelligence, being the "thinking man's game," as you brought up and I have heard quite a few times before from baseball aficionados. That very phrase, "thinking man's game," is a backhanded denigration of fans of every other sport: if baseball is the thinking man's game, other games are for those who do not think.

Once AGAIN I said nothing about "cerebral" or "requiring intelligence" nor has that ever even occurred to me. You plugged that in. NOR did I imply any denigration of any other sport; actually you're the only one between us who's brought up negative value judgments about any sport. And you simply don't have the right to ascribe those ass-sumptions to me. Nor is the "thinking man's game" phrase my creation anyway; I'm simply analyzing why that phrase may have come about. That being, in baseball nothing can be assumed since no clock makes an outcome inevitable. Therefore, there are more possibilities to THINK about, than in a game where the football team is down 38 to 3 and with 53 seconds left they clearly have no shot -- ergo LESS to think about.

Football is the worst example of the major sports with regards to game length. I gave examples of hockey and basketball games which lasted for quite a long time, but you focused on football. Why is that? In both basketball and hockey, each team has a chance to score in any overtime.

Football would be my go-to comparison since (a) I know more about it than basketball or hockey, and (b) it's been cited as the go-to "competitor" for the answer to this thread. Actually I believe I cited football, basketball, Lacrosse, soccer and rugby ALL as comparator games that operate completely differently from baseball, and I don't pretend I covered them all. And that was to draw a distinction for a game that is unique, at least among "major sports", in how its offense and defense operates.

As I said, anything can happen, but mostly does not. As with any sport, there are outliers and exceptions, but most contests fall within some basic, general parameters. It's possible for a regular season baseball game to go on for 10 hours, sure. If you think that's a good thing, more power to you

Once AGAIN I didn't make a value judgment about whether it's a "good" or "bad" thing; I simply said it is, and that "is" directly distinguishes it from time-determined sports. That is, football, basketball, hockey etc depend on a clock, where baseball does not. And that sets it apart. Whether a fan is enthused or annoyed at a baseball game still going on unresolved at four AM is irrelevant.

I disagree that the way the game is not timed makes it a more cerebral game.

Again --- your term. Let us know who wins that battle in your head. Presumably in the 32nd inning.

Here's what this boils down to: While I have heard fans of all the major sports talk about why they prefer whichever sport they prefer, it is only baseball fans try to claim their chosen sport is one that requires more intelligence, so far as I can recall.

Has anyone here implied that...... besides you?

 

[Montrovant]

You are the one who began the subjective, emotionally-based analysis by calling baseball poetry. I was merely engaging in the same thing. My "agenda" has not been to denigrate baseball, or I would have simply done that. I was, instead, refuting the concept of baseball as so much more cerebral, requiring more intelligence, being the "thinking man's game," as you brought up and I have heard quite a few times before from baseball aficionados. That very phrase, "thinking man's game," is a backhanded denigration of fans of every other sport: if baseball is the thinking man's game, other games are for those who do not think.

Once AGAIN I said nothing about "cerebral" or "requiring intelligence" nor has that ever even occurred to me. You plugged that in. NOR did I imply any denigration of any other sport; actually you're the only one between us who's brought up negative value judgments about any sport. And you simply don't have the right to ascribe those ass-sumptions to me. Nor is the "thinking man's game" phrase my creation anyway; I'm simply analyzing why that phrase may have come about. That being, in baseball nothing can be assumed since no clock makes an outcome inevitable. Therefore, there are more possibilities to THINK about, than in a game where the football team is down 38 to 3 and with 53 seconds left they clearly have no shot -- ergo LESS to think about.

Football is the worst example of the major sports with regards to game length. I gave examples of hockey and basketball games which lasted for quite a long time, but you focused on football. Why is that? In both basketball and hockey, each team has a chance to score in any overtime.

Football would be my go-to comparison since (a) I know more about it than basketball or hockey, and (b) it's been cited as the go-to "competitor" for the answer to this thread. Actually I believe I cited football, basketball, Lacrosse, soccer and rugby ALL as comparator games that operate completely differently from baseball, and I don't pretend I covered them all. And that was to draw a distinction for a game that is unique, at least among "major sports", in how its offense and defense operates.

As I said, anything can happen, but mostly does not. As with any sport, there are outliers and exceptions, but most contests fall within some basic, general parameters. It's possible for a regular season baseball game to go on for 10 hours, sure. If you think that's a good thing, more power to you

Once AGAIN I didn't make a value judgment about whether it's a "good" or "bad" thing; I simply said it is, and that "is" directly distinguishes it from time-determined sports. That is, football, basketball, hockey etc depend on a clock, where baseball does not. And that sets it apart. Whether a fan is enthused or annoyed at a baseball game still going on unresolved at four AM is irrelevant.

I disagree that the way the game is not timed makes it a more cerebral game.

Again --- your term. Let us know who wins that battle in your head. Presumably in the 32nd inning.

Here's what this boils down to: While I have heard fans of all the major sports talk about why they prefer whichever sport they prefer, it is only baseball fans try to claim their chosen sport is one that requires more intelligence, so far as I can recall.

Has anyone here implied that...... besides you?

Here's an example of how "thinking man's game" is used to describe baseball as a more cerebral sport than others: Christy Mathewson and the Thinking Man’s Game

At the end of this article you'll see a quote about baseball being the thinking man's game being connected to being the best sport: Baseball: The thinking man's game when there is time to think

This article seems to consider the phrase to mean that the players in baseball are more intelligent (or at least better educated) than other sports: The Thinking Man’s Game?

I'm not just making up a definition out of whole cloth. I've heard the phrase used before, and it's been used to either make baseball sound better or other sports sound worse (or both).

 

[Unkotare]

There are many great sports, but wrestling is the first and best measure of a man.