Letters to the Editor
Lynx
Published Letters: 1589 Editor's Choice: 126
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Mikes Pace
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All sports are dangerous, Mike. Heck, life is dangerous. Are your concussion guesses including from beans in baseball, heading in soccer, collisions in basketball, fights and collisions in hockey, etc, etc?
Or are you engaging in acts of wild hyperbole that undermine your actual argument?
You think baseball isn't dangerous? You're kidding yourself.
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fourpound
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not saying they're equally dangerous, just that no sport is safe or free from injury. Football is dangerous and the league does its best to minimize the risk while allowing the game to proceed. To suggest football is too dangerous to play is simply silly. And you might be surprised if you compare concussion frequency in football to that of soccer.
The simple fact that many people consider Brett Favre's consecutive starts for a QB record more impressive than Ripkens (a number in the 100's versus the thousands) is one simple indicator.
Too simple really. Baseball players play 10+ times the games football players play every year. So Favre's 240 games = 2400 baseball games. Yes, football is a rougher sport, probably 10 times rougher, but that's not to say it is inhumanely brutal.
The routine actions of a football play will result in severe suspensions in "non-contact" sports.
Well sure, they're "non contact" so contacting would result in a suspension. I don't think the intensity of the "routine actions" would have anything to do with that.
On the other side of the equation you also have the mind-numbing boredom of a baseball game. How thrilling it must be at the end of the game to hear an outfielder talk about how he watched so many plays happen in front of him. Or for any of them to talk about how they watched the pitcher strike someone out.
Football isn't exciting because of the violence, it is exciting because of the action. 22 people running around all at the same time, trying to keep track of the ball and each other. Is there violence? Yes. Can that be part of the excitement? Yes. However to equate it to boxing or another blood sport is a simplistic attempt to horrify people. Mikes Pace's yammering about unrealistic numbers of concussions or his wacky SF yarns about steroid use turning people into monsters are just silly attempts at using wild statements to bait people or scare them.
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caddis
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, that's right, he took out the commercials, timeouts, huddles, and standing around
Sure, there's a channel on Direct Tv that does this now with every game. I believe each game ends up edited down to 45 minutes or so. 11 minutes is simply wrong.
And yet 11 minutes is proably longer than you'd see the average outfielder do more than stand still. Heck it is probably more than you'd see the average infielder do more than stand still. You know why no-one edits a baseball game "to replay all the actual 'action' of the game"? 'cause you'd end up with nothing left.
Most of the time taken up by a baseball game is either spent waiting for a pitcher to do something, changing sides or an interaction between catcher, pitcher and batter. The other 15 guys are doing nothing but watch.
It is indeed a lot of sitting around punctuated by extreme violence.
And with baseball you don't even get the violence.
If you doubt this, please compare the health and mobility (and longevity) of NFL veterans with actual war veterans.
Sure and we can include baseball players in the comparison too. What do we end up with? Some live long, healthy lives, others live short, unhealthy ones and there's a ton of people in-between. Until you have some evidence to link to, this is all conjecture and guilt through implication.
Not that people aren't entertained by this sport.
And please remember this includes the people playing it.
As far as being sick of people complaining about the lack of action in baseball, you knew exactly what sport I was talking about when I called it the Watch Guys Stand Around For Awhile League. And that was simply in reaction to your belittling football with a much less accurate fake name.
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fourpound
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]mike's pace is not exaggerating the concussion list as much as you think
Go read his original post. 10+ per game today.
studies suggest that 20% of high school football players suffer a concussion during a typical season (250,000 concussions a year).
And how does this compare to the general population? How many kids of that age get a concussion from something else over any 4 month period? Not that it doesn't mean the number should be ignored or that efforts shouldn't be made to reduce it, but it would provide perspective. And what are the severities of the concussions? Is that all concussions or just ones severe enough to cause damage or ones that cause a visible reaction?
The NFL may not do all it can, but as time progresses they do more and more. The health of the players over time improves and the sport becomes less dangerous. It isn't right to look at the old players today and judge today's sport by it. The old players of today were the players of the 70s, 60s and earlier. Many changes in equipment and rules and medicine have improved the outlook for those playing today.
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Baseball vs. football
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Am I the only one who finds this argument tiresome and silly?
Not at all. I find it to be as well, despite the fact that I'm engaging in it here. My arguments were made in defense of football in reaction to the comments being made here about it. If you like to watch cricket or baseball or football or soccer, etc then great for you. I'm not going to argue the inherant superiority of any sport except as an example of how the argument can be made for and against any sport. I was simply prompted to make the arguments I made here because of some extraordinary, rediculous statements made by others. Perhaps I should have refrained from doing so, but I was annoyed and reacted.