By Jason Jones

This may ruffle some feathers.  Its been about a decade since the “what is America’s past time now?” discussion first started.  I can only speak for myself in this matter.  The landscape of this country was much different in the early 1900s than it is today.  It makes perfect sense that American’s were head over heels for baseball back then…and into the 1980s for that matter.  It was a gentleman’s game.  People that went to the theatre and hosted dinner parties were the same people who eventually became avid baseball fans.  Think of the eras that involved, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt.  Baseball was great, for what it was.  However, there was no real competition.

Basketball was a joke until at least the 1970s.  In essence the NBA/ABA were considered along the same lines as how we consider the WNBA now.  Sure, it can be entertaining but just is not on par with its competitors.  Football in general was fun, but thought of as nothing more than an extra curricular activity for academics in college.  Pro Football was, comparatively speaking, a brute sport vs. baseball.  Football was not a gentleman’s game.  With almost a century of a monopoly on the sports fans attention, it would take a great deal to de-thrown baseball.

Try to recollect the way baseball was even as recently as the 1980s.  The homerun leader might have hit 30-35 homeruns.  One of the offensive hero’s of the time was a leadoff hitter who shattered the stolen bases record (Rickey Henderson).  The pitching was probably better overall in the 80s, but they had less elite all-time pitchers.  All in all, there was an understanding that the players top to bottom were collectively better then, but there are more elite players now.  The game was just more “the way it was intended to be” back then.  Rarely did a team rely on one guy to simply win a game from the plate by going yard late in the game.  The idea of manufacturing runs was just the way, it was not situational baseball.  That’s just how they played.  Hits, steals and quality defensive play was just more important back then, whereas now it seems that the power categories are all people care about…homeruns, rbi’s, strikeouts, etc.  Case in point, one of my favorite teams to watch in the late 80s early 90s was the Cincinnati Reds.  Barry Larkin, Jose Rijo, Eric Davis and Chris Sabo.  Now ask yourself, “how many of those are even hall of famers, much less first ballot hall of famers?”

Football, up until recently in their history, have always been a “judged in retrospect” type of situation.  In each decade of their existance, what was witnessed was good, but never really carried in perspective of itself until the last 20-30 years.  Y.A. Tittle, Sammy Baugh, Jim Brown, Ray Nitschke, Johnny Unitas, all were good for what they were, but never really given their just due until long after their careers were over.  Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Dick Butkis, Walter Payton were a different story entirely.  Take the 1964 World Championship Game.  Johnny Unitas, America’s guy, people that he could just stroll in on his white steed in his shiny black cleats and sleepwalk his way through the Cleveland Browns.  Conversely, two years ago, the mighty New England Patriots were staring at only the second undefeated season in history, all they had to do was beat the New York Giants.  In both cases the considerable favorites did not win.  What’s the difference?  The Giants Superbowl victory is considered to be one of the greatest achievements in Pro Football history.  The Browns championship is not even widely recognized.  Its barely a footnote in history.

The game is evolving.  When I compared the five best WRs who played up until 1979, the average draft position was the 5th round.  Doing the same for the hall of famers since 1980 at that position the average was almost the 2nd round.  Now, granted, draft position does not necissarily indicate anything other than draft position.  It does show a difference in trend or style.  The game always has and probably always will be won and lost in the trenches, but the “skill” position players are becoming more valuable.  I could do this at every position, but trust me, it holds up everywhere on the field.

Football is just more entertaining.  In 2009, it takes a die hard degenerate to argue the contrary.  Football is a “per moment” game.  Each play can be cataloged as a potential game changer.  There are generally 6 days between games and only 16 of them to decide the playoffs.  No one man can win a football game.  If Adrian Peterson goes for 400 yds and 7 touchdowns, someone had to call the play, receive the snap, hand off the ball, and a number of guys have to block accordingly to allow for that to happen. With one swing of a bat, one player can win a game rendering the previous 130 pitches irrelevant.

Baseball may come down to a single moment, but there are numerous moments in any baseball game that are non impactful.  In most cases, any given baseball team plays 5-6 games a week adding up to 162 of them.  There is no time to breathe and put the previous game into perspective (ex. Colorado Rockies between July 30th-Sept 30th 2009.  There were winning streaks and a couple losing streaks, but the finished that stretch almost exactly where they started it).

Don’t discount the value of only having 16 games, it adds value to the fans intensity toward it.  You can miss 41 games of a baseball season and it is very possible by season’s end that you didn’t really miss anything.  If you miss four games in the NFL you very well could have missed the stretch that makes or breaks the entire season (consider the last four games for the Denver Broncos in 2008).

Baseball is an apathetic game by nature.  Note: this not intended to offend traditional baseball fans.  Its a cliche but, “fail 70% of the time and you’re a first ballot hall of famer”.  Now I understand that point is not exactly fair.  It may be humanly impossible to hit a baseball on a 50-60%  average, but not all of this is balanced anyway.  Any quarterback worth starting in the NFL is expected to complete 55-60% of his passes.  If a WR has 80 catches with 10 drops, its almost considered unacceptable.  A starting pitcher gets about 40 starts a season, yet he may only need to win 15 games to be considered an All-Star.  The rate of success or even rate of production is just better and more frequent in football.

I am not trying to sway anyone’s opinion.  The fact is, people like what they like.  If you are a baseball die hard, I can’t change your mind.  The question was, “what is America’s pastime now?”  The masses would just prefer a faster, harder hitting game where every moment matters, than a slow game of the past where nuance carries as much weight as the stats they hide behind.  How many times have you heard that a team would have won if the manager implemented a double steal or would not have pulled his starter as soon as he did?

People like the water cooler aspect of football.  A game goes down on Sunday afternoon and a group of people will talk and spin that game a hundred different ways before the end of the work week.  “Six ways to Sunday”.  Baseball…the Yankees have now won two out of three this week, but they lost two out of three the series before that.

So, what brought me to bring this up?  I was listening to a terrestrial radio station in Colorado (Oct 6).  A listener called in and attempted to rip the hosts a new one for talking about the Broncos in October.  “The Rockies are going to the playoffs and the Broncos are 4-0 going into week 5 of the NFL’s regular season.  The only way you can rationalize talking NFL right now is if you are HIGH”.  I used to be one of those guys who said, I’d rather watch NFL preseason game 3 than whatever the regular season baseball that is on that night.   To go a step further, for that gentleman, I would rather talk NFL week 5 than preview a baseball playoff series that has yet to be played.  Why is that?  Let’s take the series in question.  I’ve seen the Rockies play the Phillies 6 times since April.  I have not seen the 2009 Broncos play the Patriots.  How many factors can one bring up that is going to be different about match up #7 that we don’t already know or have to wait and see to find out?  As a radio personality, I can tell you that I could fill a 3 hour time slot on nothing but Broncos/Patriots, but would struggle to make an entertaining show about an MLB playoff series that hasn’t happened yet.  Rockies are consistent now, they know how to play small ball when they need to, Jim Tracy will have them ready, they beat the Phillies in 2007, etc…not exactly compelling stuff.  The people as a whole are going to get more excited about football on all levels.

Think of it like this (starting at the top)…nothing beats the Superbowl, late regular season football is better than the early round NBA playoffs.  The end of the Stanley Cup playoffs may be better than any of the NBA playoffs.  Regular season football is better than any leagues regular season.  NHL regular season vs. NBA regular season depends on the fan.  NBA and NHL preseason is pretty much a non factor.  MLB spring training is supposed to mean something to the die hards, but really, that fades rather early.  As for pouring salt in the wound, the NFL preseason is widely regarded as the biggest rip off in organized professional sports.  From this fan’s perspective…I’d rather watch preseason football in August than most baseball in August.

As of this very moment, two stories in the NFL revolving around diva WR’s just broke with about 60 seconds separating them.  Pro Bowl WR Braylon Edwards gets traded to the New York Jets for what sounds like peanuts on the heels of punching a friend of LeBron James’ (kind of a no-no).  And whiny cry baby Michael Crabtree has agreed to terms with the 49ers only a few days before their week 5 game.  In baseball, some starting pitcher or lead off hitter might get left off the first round playoff roster due to a nagging injury.  There is just more to be interested in with football from moment to moment.  Keep in mind, I say this on the morning following a miraculous 12 inning affair between the Twins and Tigers to decide the division winner in a play in game.  The Colorado Rockies have one of the greatest turnarounds in sports history.  The Yankees and Red Sox battled it out all season long…again.

And I am still more interested in Brett Favre winning a home game against his former team.  Brandon Marshall and Josh McDaniel hugging after the game winning score.  Trying to sincerely convince myself that the Saints might not blow it this year.  With the performances from the Steelers, Titans, Chargers, and Ravens…there really is parody in the NFL from year to year.

I hope I have not offended anyone, just mere observations from someone who may be going through a sports mid life crisis.