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.

caddis If my memory of his account is correct, the three-hour extravaganza that is an NFL game comprised something like eleven minutes of players actually playing.

I always heard growing up that it was six minutes. And yet, on the DirecTV Sunday NFL Ticket satellite package, there's a feature called "Short Cuts," which is every game edited down to just the action. It goes: play, whistle, cut to both teams at the line. There are a couple of non-action scenes included in each game, such as a particularly relevant referee announcement, but I doubt those add up to more than 30 seconds. The games tend to come in right around 23 minutes, not 11 or 6.

And I find that the editors cut those games too close. I'd like them to let the plays run a little longer, rather than cutting right as the ballcarrier falls, often before the whistle, and I'd prefer if the scene started when the offense stepped up to the line, not with the quarterback in mid-cadence. So I think there's more than 23 minutes worth of "action," though I don't define action as "players running." I define it as a part of the game I want to see. Similarly, I wouldn't say that the action in a baseball game starts when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand.

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.

Am I the only one who finds this argument tiresome and silly? If you like one more than the other, why is it necessary to insult the other?

Just because you like football and not baseball, it doesn't mean baseball is a bunch of fat guys standing around doing nothing. Just because you like baseball more than football, it doesn't mean football is a bunch of jarheads running into each other. They're both great games. A lot of people like them. A lot of people dislike them. Neither says much, I don't think, about the character or intelligence of the person in question.

There's a lot of standing around in soccer too, or aimless trotting anyway. And you know what? Who cares. Why is it important what someone does when the play is elsewhere? Football might be somehow better than baseball, but if so it's not because the wide receiver jogs downfield on a running play, while the right fielder just stands there on a grounder to third.

I happen to like baseball more than I like football. But that's because of my tastes and interests, not because of some inherent superiority of baseball. I don't like golf much at all, but that doesn't compel me to concoct an argument by which I show that if you like golf, you're somehow deficient.

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.