Let’s Talk About Balls: Why Is Baseball Considered “Boring” While Football Isn’t?
Fewer claims drive me up the wall more than this idea that somehow baseball is “boring” whereas football isn’t. (I find it equally irritating when people claim they’re Batman fans because Superman is “boring”. But that’s a different conversation.)
In all the times I’ve heard people tell me they think baseball is boring, I haven’t actually heard a good defense of why football is not then equally so. I don’t say this to imply that I think everyone needs to love baseball and hate football. Do I wish baseball was the most popular sport in the country? Of course. But people can enjoy any number of things that suit their preference. However, I think if you’re going to dislike something, you should at least have a well-reasoned opinion.
I’m genuinely curious to understand what people so frequently see in football that they don’t in baseball. Because to me, it’s kind of mind-boggling. So I wanted to interrogate some of the most common criticisms about baseball I’d heard over the years, and see if it really was that different from football.
Criticism #1: “It’s too slow.”
Let’s interpret this to mean the pace of play. If football and basketball fans claim that baseball is significantly slower than its counterparts, it seems logical to assume that’s being said because the alternatives are high-speed, action-packed, adrenaline fests where something is always happening.
Ooh, except that’s not true. An NFL game has just eleven minutes of actual gameplay; and the average NFL play lasts four seconds. This is so pathetic it makes me want to laugh. Four seconds is like the time it takes for a batter to hit a single foul ball. And eleven minutes is roughly as long as it takes to boil most pasta!
To be fair to baseball’s critics, back in 2013, the Wall Street Journal found that the actual play of a baseball game is only about eighteen to twenty minutes. Even so, that’s longer than the actual play of a football game. Aside from those 11 minutes in a football game, guess what the players are doing? Standing around. This means there’s essentially an equal amount of time for the players standing around in both sports.
I’m going to say it louder for the people in the back. Football and baseball players stand around for a comparably equal amount of time.
The key difference?
Baseball is obsessed with improving its pace of play. From pitch clocks to automatic strike zones, nothing is outside the realm of possibility for Manfred to meddle with. Some of it could be good, and some of it is bad. The one constant through recent years — if I can briefly quote James Earl Jones here — is that “baseball has marked the time.” As in, time spent talking ad nauseum about how to “fix” baseball’s pace of play. (*cue eye roll*)
What about when there is actually action on the field? Surely, baseball critics have to admit that both baseball and football have the same amount of dynamic playmaking. If you’re a football fan and you’re clutching your pearls, hold on. Just stay with me because I want to drop a couple more truth bombs on you.
Criticism #2: “Nothing happens.”
The idea “nothing happens” in baseball implies that even when there is action in baseball, it isn’t as exciting as what happens in football. I’ve always found this notion strange. Let’s break it down by doing some math. And for the record, I hate math. Like “I’d rather eat sawdust” level hate it. But, I’m determined to prove my point, so here we go:
In 2021, on average, no NFL team made it more than 6.1 yards per play. The average of all 32 teams was 5.4 yards. Converted, the highest team only moved the ball 18.3 feet per play on average, and the entire league only moved the ball 16.2 feet on average. This is important to note, because in baseball, the distance from home plate to first base is 90ft. Converted, 90ft = 30 yards.
I’m no math whiz, but even I know that 90 is more than 16. That means, on average, a football team is covering less ground during a single play than it takes for a single batter to run to first base. In football, if someone runs the ball 30 yards, that’s considered an exceptional play. Yet that’s only equal to literally the shortest distance a baseball player can possibly run on a single play.
Passing plays are no better. In 2021, the NFL’s average amount of yards gained from completed passes was only 10.2 yards. San Francisco, the highest ranked team in this category, still only gained 12.3 yards per pass completion on average in 2021.
How do you like them apples?!
Now maybe you’re thinking, “What about the times when a quarterback chucks it forty yards down the field and the wide receiver catches it one-handed after hurdling a guy and double back flipping over his opponents?” And that’s true. Football has flashes of amazing, hold-your-breath athleticism. But so does baseball. I see no difference between those amazing passing plays, and a baseball player smashing a home run into the upper deck, or scoring an inside-the-park home run, or throwing someone out at home from the outfield corner.
You cannot tell me with a straight face that watching a group of grown men wriggling around on the ground squabbling over who has their balls — excuse me, the ball — is really that much more exciting. I flat out won’t believe you.
Besides, we are not living in the dead ball era of baseball anymore. Some of the most exciting players the sport has ever seen are playing the game today. For example, in my own very limited and biased opinion, just look at players like Bryce Harper, Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, and of course, Shohei Ohtani. If Shohei continues performing as he has been, he’s easily going to be the GOAT (except for Jackie Robinson).
Honestly, I feel like he should just trademark the phrase, “Are you not entertained?!” The man pitches and hits. And he does both well. The only other thing he could do — and I would be unsurprised to see him try — is to be a catcher on his days off. Like, come on.
Criticism #3: “The games are too long.”
Here’s a fun little tidbit for you. As I mentioned earlier, in recent years baseball has been bending over backward to reduce the length of games. When I’ve questioned why this is, the colloquial response seems to be along the lines of, “in order to compete with sports like football and basketball, baseball needs to appeal to the audience’s shrinking attention span.” Meanwhile, as of 2012, football games have been getting longer. LONGER!
Maybe you’re thinking, “well 2012 was a decade ago. Surely, the NFL has fixed the problem by now.” Nope! They haven’t. In 2020, the average length of an NFL game was 3 hrs and 12 minutes; and the average length of a baseball game was 3 hrs and 5 minutes.
So what is baseball chasing? Head injuries?
At the end of the day, I’m left to think one of two things: either Americans don’t actually enjoy watching sports that much (see again the 11 paltry minutes of actual gameplay in football), or most Americans just enjoy watching other people give each other traumatic brain injuries.
I think all the (largely male) armchair athletes writing these “think pieces” just need to wait a damn second and pipe down. Here’s a radical thought: maybe just enjoy the sport for what it is instead of spinning yourselves into a tizzy.
Oh. And in case it wasn’t clear….
Quit telling me my favorite sport is boring. I neither asked for nor care for, your opinion.
You don’t need to agree with me in thinking baseball is better than football. If you still like football better, great! Good for you. But please just shut up. We’ve all heard your opinion: loud and clear. Stop going around saying that baseball is less than. It’s not. Don’t insult those of us who like baseball by erroneously thinking everyone agrees with your opinion that baseball is boring like it’s some objective fact. Maybe, instead, just ask us why we’re so passionate about the sport. And actively listen to us.
You might find we have more in common than you think.
