Why I can't sit through the national pastime

The 2004 Boston Red Sox went 98-64 during the regular season for a winning percentage of 60.49%
The 2005 Kansas City Chiefs went 10-6 during the regular season for a winning percentage of 62.50%

The Sox won the Series and the Chiefs won a seat at home in January.

So what? So depending on the year, the same winning percentage gets you in the playoffs in baseball, but not football. Big deal. But besides the percentages, here's what is really matters: 64 times the Fenway Faithful can see their team lose and still win it all. 64 times! You could lose every game, every day for 2 months and still make the playoffs.

But in football, you know that if you lose 7 games your chances for the playoffs are slim. And sometimes even if you only lose 6. That's how important every game, every snap is. At the end of the NFL regular season, most teams could point to 2 games that if they had gone in a different direction, their postseason would have ended up differently. If Roethlisburger had missed another game due to injury the Steelers don't make the playoffs. But when you miss the baseball playoffs by 2 games, you can think back about the 60 games that you lost, and say that's a shame that we lost 60 games. I wish we had a couple back. But not one game has the importance of a football game.

To further illustrate the point, look at college football. If you have thoughts about winning the championship, elite isn't going to cut it. You have to be perfect. And isn't that the way it should be?

Do you know what made the USC-Notre Dame game so exciting? There is 10 seconds counting down, and if Leinart doens't cross the goalline, USC won't go to the Rose Bowl. The entire postseason which is months away, could vanish on one play. Well shucks, that makes this play kind of important. USC scores and sets up probably the best national championship game ever.

So back to baseball. Who cares if the Cards just got swept by their division rival? They're still the favorite to win the pennant. Playing ten times more games than football means that a football game is ten times more important than a baseball game. If the Cards open the season 0-10 that's the equivalent of dropping the NFL opener - which half of the teams are guaranteed to do every year - that's science.


UPDATE: So today, Tuesday morning, I was listening to Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio and they were talking about the joy of walking into a baseball stadium for the first game of the season, and how you can't recreate that feeling. And they opened up something to me. One of the nice things about a baseball game is how it doesn't matter. You can root for your team and if they lose, it's a shame. But it's only one game. You can come back tomorrow and try and do better. It's not life and death like football. It's relaxing, it's beer and hot dogs and if you miss a half inning, it's fine. It's an enjoyable pastime.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with having a game that you can go and have fun no matter what. It's hard to enjoy a football game when you're team is losing. So it's not that I don't think that baseball is worthless, and doesn't have a place. For my money, and time, I just want my sports to be important. I like the significance. I like putting everything on the line. But I don't have a problem with going and eating some dogs and just having fun at ye olde ballpark once in a while. If that's your thing.