Baseball and soccer both require intimate knowledge of the game to appreciate the little things done during the course of the contest.
My FIL is off the boat from Italy and we both get amazed at how the top level guys can stop the ball at their feet on any pass and any speed. And when teams do proper spacing and movement.
Conversely in baseball it is the same at how the players make the hard to do seem routine. If you have never played either sport you do not appreciate how hard it is to do some of these things and do them so well.
I mean a ground ball in baseball is an out…errors are rare and the range is insane. Go watch any non-professional baseball game and tell me it is the same…LOL.
I am in complete agreement with them. That said I loved playing it, and back when I was actively doing so it was more fun to watch. But at this point it has probably been damn near 30 years since I’ve watched a baseball game start to finish.
I disagree. I quite like cricket (unusual for a scot) but just can’t get into baseball. I do agree you need a good understanding of the gsme to appreciate it. So I will persevere with it. I don’t like basketball either.
Football (soccer) can be boring when you don’t have a vested interest in one of the teams.
Well I definitely don’t have a great understanding of cricket, just that back when I was visiting the isles 20+ years ago, games could last days. I understand they’ve taken measures to fix that, but I definitely don’t find it all that interesting. Again though, this is more of a lesser of two evils situation, I don’t like baseball either. I used to like basketball, back before it was a spreadsheet playing out on the hardwood, now I don’t care much for it either.
At least football is constant action. I do get why some think it’s all sound and fury signifying nothing, so in that sense an understanding definitely helps, but at least something is happening at all times. Also it has the best game associated with it - Football Manager - which ensures my lifelong fandom.
One thing I like about soccer and Rugby is you get an entire half without any commercials. The NFL is basically 75 percent commercials with the odd football drive mixed in between commercials.
My dad used to tell me how they would often take the tunnel bus to Detroit (from Windsor) and walk to Tiger Stadium. Really loved doing that. That would have been in the late 50s and early 60s. A different world. Players weren’t making insane money to play the game, and it was easily affordable entertainment. My dad and his buddies played ball and loved the game. Nowadays he doesn’t even watch on TV.
