Talking about intimidation facing Bob Gibson, remember when he beaned Agee his very first at bat as a Met in spring training, 1968? The first exhibition game of the year and Gibby was already head hunting Tommie, I think for digging into the dirt too much. Still remember Tommie laying flat on his back motionless.

Bill Hands did the same in that showdown game against the Cubs in 1969 and Tommie was able to duck out of the way. Koozman came back and threw his first pitch right at Ron Santo’s wrists – an area he knew the late hall of famer could not get away from – to protect his teammate and send the message that the Mets weren’t going to be intimidated. The play further worked against Durocher as Agee homered, took Williams by surprise stretching a single into a double due to the wet grass in left, and then sliding just under the tag as Hundley was “jumping up and down, up and down”.

Today Koozman would have been thrown out of the game for both teams would have been warned after Hands. Also, with the regular season being watered down, it is doubtful one is going to find such tension in a battle for first place.

I’m not a particularly huge fan of soccer, but I respect it, and understand that worldwide it is probably the most loved sport, but this is unbelievable news, and I feel its on par with the unfortunate bad press we have with PED’s.

While it is unfortunate that 1 person has died from a baseball being pitched, I don’t by any means believe its a “miracle” that number is so low. The Strike zone is nowhere near a batters head, and pitchers, shouldn’t be pitchers if they miss often enough and by that much for it to be considered a threat.

The NFL and the media only release those point spreads, fantasy stats, prop bets and such for “entertainment purposes”.

I can absolutely agree that the commercialization of the Super Bowl has gone over-board. I believe I read that CBS made roughly 220 millions dollars off of commercial spots alone, for this season.

Yes, opening day can not get here soon enough.

Do you think replay will gradually become more and more integrated with our game? I believe it absolutely is, but in all honesty, I think it can be done in an extremely efficient manner. If you think about any bad call in baseball that you just saw happen, you know within 10 seconds, the replay is being shown on the big screen in the stadium showing the ump botched the call, and you hear the bemoan and get loud, but we cant overturn those calls? I think this is pretty unfair and unjust, I believe we owe it to the players to allow them to get the calls right, ya know?

It is a miracle that only one major league batter died from being hit with a pitched ball in 120 plus years!

Major League hitters have no time worth mentioning in deciding when to swing and when to duck!

I wanted to talk about how presumptious the NFL is when it comes to hyping itself and how that turns me off altogether but the reason I didn’t is because, MLB does its part in trying to do the same thing.

I mean the total BS about refererring to super bowls as number 32, 18 or whatever. Though it is now a tradition with the fans, it was not a tradition that developed over time, fine. The sudden emergance of those Roman numerials came out of clever marketing ploy which was part of the consistant attempt by the NFL to sell the product as the sport of gladiators minus the slavery bit (just like Citi Field when the Wilpons tried creating their own immediate traditions instead of letting them just develop over time with fan sentimentality). It was the time of the Vietnam war when football was being was being associated with courage and the NFL took full advantage of it.

What I really hated in the seventies and eighties was the CBS pre-game show. Broadcast out of “NFL Control” (or was it “CBS Control”?) behind Brett Mussberger and others was a slew of technicians sitting glued to big screens, intensly monitoring all the detailed information from around the county as if they were covering a moonshot or national elections. Yes, there are studio sets to help make the program more entertaining but that was just over-kill.

And there is always the connotation about the players being like the brave, courageous, sacrificing soilders in the trenches giving their all for the good of the team. I once met a guy who told me he was a professional football player – although getting into further discussion I found that he had never made the cut past the final exhibition game. He told me though the players like to win, their first concern is how well they did their own job. Team work? Now true, this is just one individual, however, I would tend to believe that one putting himself through that grueling, rigerious training would be more concerned about his own self considering the short life-span of the average NFL player

http://www.livestrong.com/article/15527-long-average-career-nfl-player/

Of course, had MLB been able to hype itself with the same success as the NFL machine, it would have done so. Perhaps it’s because the baseball fan doesn’t go for that. We don’t buy the all-star hype about the game really meaning something nor are the playoffs presented like a circus or carnival atmosphere.

What MLB has lost is the tradition and connection to history that no other league sport could boast about. No more pennant races like we knew it and the watering down of the regular season and really taking away the glamour and mystic of the post season when we anticipated who could win the league championship series. The steroid era took away the mistique of the record books. Baseball used to be a past-time. Now, for many of us, it is just hanging on more to the past than it being a continuation.

Bring back the two division set-up. If need be, expand by two more teams and have two divisions of eight each – like the way the leagues were set up until 1961. There was something different even with a team finishing eighth year after year. Continue with the traditional 162 game schedule in which teams within the division battle each other 14 times each year (98 games) and outside the division 8 times (64 games). In time, MLB will notice that the watering down of the regular and post-seasons – while raising attendance for those mediocre teams who would otherwise be out of it – would benefit in the long-term by bringing the sport back to the way it was – when fans then took the post-season and world series more seriously. Have it where the flag can again say “World Champions” instead of “World Series Champions” which says a lot about things.

Tell me one individual who remembers winning the 2006 Eastern Division as something special or that it just got us into the playoffs? For those who remember, I am sure they will agree it felt like it was missing something from the prestige we had back 1988, 1986, 1973 or 1969,

My biggest peeve with the NFL is how they continue to get a pass on social issues. When MLB had a drug problem, the United States government had to get involved. When players like Brian Cushing, Tamba Hali, Shawne Merriman are getting caught taking PED – it’s talked about maybe, MAYBE for 15 minutes.

When Ray Lewis is in a story about taking a spray that is banned just days before the super bowl, it’s the devil’s work bringing that story up – nevermind golfer Vijay Singh acknowledged the legitimacy of the article. And it’s gone.

Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez is in a story and we’re in the WINTER and the baseball PED story is bigger than the NFL PED story days before the Super Bowl. Why? Because there’s too much $ on the line in the NFL to talk about anything but the game.

If the Miami New Times story came out days before Game 1 of the World Series with the Yanks in it – it would be have mass hysteria.

The NFL also has an attitude problem. Would you rather your favorite players inject themselves so they can work out more – or have them be involved in a double homicide refuse to give accurate testimony and walk and then say “god never makes mistakes.” Or have a car service for players who get drunk and need a ride home yet they get behind the wheel and kill a teammate in the process? Or walk into a NYC club and shoot themselves in the league?

If those 3 instances happened to a MLB player, it’d be magnified 10 fold.

We have hall of famers being kept out because they have zits on their back… but you can bet Ray Lewis who was charged once with murder, felony murder and aggravated assault and magically came back from a torn triceps and was RECORDED ordering a banned substance – he’ll go in 1st ballot.

Since 2000, there have been 629 NFL players arrested. Let that sink in for a minute.

I really enjoy watching NFL games. But I see through the double standard which is why I cannot put as much emotional stock in the sport.

In the World Series, a team has come back down 0-2, 5 times in the last 24 years alone.

By comparison, in the Super Bowl:
the team that has scored 1st has won 30 of the last 43.
the team that was leading after 3 quarters had won 13 straight, 17 of the last 19 and 35 of the last 43.

And really, it’s much harder to come back down 0-2 in a best of 7 than simply to come back in one game (the Super Bowl). To come back from 0-2, you need to win 4 of the next 5 games! Even during the regular season, how often does a team win 4 out of 5 games , much less in the pressure of a World Series

Part of what I wrote was tongue-in-cheek. I’ll even play devils advocate to myself: The analogy about 9 incomplete passes equating to 9 errors is not really valid since, in my example, David Wright doesn’t have someone trying to stop him from making the play, whereas a WR does.

I will counter your claim about watching pitchers taking warm-up tosses or OFers playing long toss. Valid point. But—and this may be a cop out—I don’t have to watch it because that occurs during commercial breaks.

Your point about replays in baseball? Again, valid. And I hate that, too.
Those instances are few and far between. Football plays happen on the field—and then if there’s a flag, we sit and wait to see if what happened really happened. On a play by play basis, officials have more direct impact on the game than umpires do in Baseball. Sure, umps blow calls all the time. But overall, how many times does an umpire have an impact on the play by play? Much less than football.

I really did used to love Football. No, never as much as Baseball. That is true. There are several reasons I stopped watching/stopped following. I wont bore you with them here. One reason, however, is the commercialization of the Super Bowl itself. Over the last 15 years or so, the game itself has become secondary to the commercials and the halftime entertainment. You know that old joke: I went to a fight and a Hockey game broke out. It’s almost the same. I was watching fancy commercials and the Super Bowl broke out.

Here’s an example—and keep in mind I’ve watched only 1 ½ Super Bowls in the past 25 years. But here’s my point: Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, U2, The Who, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Black Eyed Peas, Kiss, Aerosmith. Now, I don’t even watch football and yet I’m aware that all of these acts performed during the Super Bowl. On the flip side, how many acts can you name that sung the National Anthem during a World Series game? Or God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch? I cant think of one off the top of my head. That’s my point. Who performs and what products are sold to us has been elevated to almost the same importance as the game itself.

Again, just my opinion. Thanks for the feedback and your valid points.

We can agree one 1 thing: That we’re counting down to Opening Day.

While I do agree, and I enjoy baseball much more, I think you are down playing what NFL players put themselves through. Lets remember, just like baseball, they report way before the season actually starts. Mid-June Voluntary workouts and mini-camps start back up, and I imagine playing in an NFL game would be much like being in 6 or 7 car accidents in one day, your body gets beat up over and over again, and they are right back out there after one day of rest practicing for 8-10 hours prepping themselves for their next game. I’m obviously not saying baseball players do not get injuries or beat up over the course of the season, but saying they take anywhere near the beating NFL players take would be a flat out lie.

I think you are unfairly judging offensive stats of NFL players. When David Wright goes 1-5, he did not have 4 errors? In terms of offensive, a perfect pass that was dropped by a Wide Receiver is a fair equivalent of a line drive directly at an infielder. Yes, you made excellent contact and absolutely drilled a line drive, it was just unfortunately right near an infielder.

If anything, a missed tackle would be comparable to an error, or blown coverage that results in a receiver being wide open for an easy touchdown.

I’m generally just playing devils advocate here, but even for a knock on football post, I think you unfairly judged things in certain ways. Yes, i hate a 1 hour time limit, that is equal to 3 hours sometimes 4. But, in a fair comparison, in baseball, the pitcher gets to come back out and throw warm up pitches before every inning, Pitching changes take time, we also have replay now, if you are not forgetting, we to can be told if what we just saw, really happened or not. Outfielders play long toss between innings while the pitcher throws his warm up pitches, and the infielders get a couple grounders tossed to them by 1b at the same time, football does not get practice reps, QB’s dont get to throw 4 warm up passes before each posession.

They are fairly, very different sports. I see baseball as a more analyzed and precision type game, obviously hitting a Major League Fastball, let alone any pitch that moves, is probably the hardest thing to do in sports. But football is very much similar, its just a more violent, physical game, i can’t imagine how hard it probably is to lead a wide receiver sprinting down field when you have 3 blitzers about to run over you.

A fair comparison to your watching a speedster on first trying to steal a base and the pitcher trying to catch him, is an easy comparison to a linebacker trying to get a perfect jump on the snap to be able to get the QB, the mind game the QB and linebackers play is absolutely similar to that of pitchers and base stealers, both things really on reaction time, anticipation, and quickness, ability to translate incomplete information (you dont know what the pitcher is thinking, as QB doesnt know what linebacker is thinking, can go visa-versa for both examples.) into an educated decision and developing a plan in that second or two.

Sorry for this being so long.

I love baseball, but the NFL has it beat easily.

And think of it. St. Louis didn’t deserve a chance at the world series in 2006. They would have been 14 games behind us in the old system. Just shows the most mediocre team put in the playoffs can either get hot or simply go 11-8 in post-season and become a world series champion. Now it’s 12-8

And the Dodgers and Padres tied for the division lead after 162 games so they gave the division to the Padres based on head to head competition. If it was that way 34 years ago nobody would know of Bucky Dent and if it was that way the year I was born nobody would have remembered Bobby Thompson and Ralph Branca.

No drama. Joe Torre would never had said the playoffs was a crap shoot prior to the 1994 season. And that’s all the world series is as well – the winners of a post-season crap shoot and nothing more.

I just dont agree that mediocrity should be rewarded.

5 teams in each league make the post-season. 1 out of 3.
Or to put it differently, basically the 10th WORST team in the league gets into the post-season.