What is your national sport?

[Pogo]

I understand but a little less some American humor but it's well defined it's the two sports are the opposite and baseball is much better for several points

To some extent the two sports appeal to two different types of people. We call baseball the "thinking man's sport".

Mind you, it's not difficult to shift into either mode.

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

 

[Pogo]

Ha, Baseball, you have the home runs

And sometimes they get extra exciting ---

​

 

[Montrovant]

I understand but a little less some American humor but it's well defined it's the two sports are the opposite and baseball is much better for several points

To some extent the two sports appeal to two different types of people. We call baseball the "thinking man's sport".

Mind you, it's not difficult to shift into either mode.

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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

 

[Pogo]

I understand but a little less some American humor but it's well defined it's the two sports are the opposite and baseball is much better for several points

To some extent the two sports appeal to two different types of people. We call baseball the "thinking man's sport".

Mind you, it's not difficult to shift into either mode.

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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

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

 

[Montrovant]

I understand but a little less some American humor but it's well defined it's the two sports are the opposite and baseball is much better for several points

To some extent the two sports appeal to two different types of people. We call baseball the "thinking man's sport".

Mind you, it's not difficult to shift into either mode.

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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.

 

[Pogo]

To some extent the two sports appeal to two different types of people. We call baseball the "thinking man's sport".

Mind you, it's not difficult to shift into either mode.

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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.

 

[DGS49]

It was famously said many years ago that baseball was the "national pastime." What the person meant was that TALKING ABOUT baseball was the national pastime.

This is no longer the case. The USA no longer has a national sport.

But clearly, when you look at high school, college, professional, and other amateur football combined, its popularity far surpasses that of any other sport.

But I don't care for it. It's about 6th on my list. Soccer does not even appear on the list.

 

[Toro]

Buzkashi

 

[rightwinger]

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

 

[my2¢]

I can understand why it hasn't been mentioned thus far...….

 

[Pogo]

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.

 

[Montrovant]

Dalia by "we" Pogo must mean baseball fans. No one I know calls baseball the "thinking man's sport."

Actually, that includes people who are at least minor baseball fans.

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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.

 

[rightwinger]

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.

One of the oldest sports

 

[yiostheoy]

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

Baseball has been around the longest here.

It is a variation of cricket same as Amer. football is a variation of rugby.

 

[yiostheoy]

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.

Boxing dates back to the ancient Greek Olympics.

It is Greek, like wrestling, and javelin, and discus, and relay.

 

[yiostheoy]

I can understand why it hasn't been mentioned thus far...….

View attachment 196580​

Chess in from India, brought to Europe by the Crusaders in the 12th Century.

Today however it is viewed as a Russian activity since the Russians teach it in their schools like other nations teach their kids the three R's.

 

[Pogo]

It's just an expression, not meant to be limited to men.

The most rabid baseball fan around when I was growing up was my grandmother.

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.

 

[rightwinger]

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.

Boxing dates back to the ancient Greek Olympics.

It is Greek, like wrestling, and javelin, and discus, and relay.

Boxing probably dates back to the cave men

 

[Pogo]

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.

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".

 

[yiostheoy]

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.

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.