What we are seeing from the local MLB and NFL teams is a reminder why football surpassed baseball as the national pastime long ago.
The Twins are playing meaningless games badly. The Vikings are at the height of their popularity based mostly on optimism that is not justified by any objective review of franchise history.
So why do Minnesotans love the Vikings and the NFL and consider boycotting the Twins and MLB, even though the Twins have won a playoff series more recently than the Vikings have won a playoff game and have two more modern-era league championships?
Here’s why:
- The NFL doesn’t preemptively rest its best players. The best baseball players might take any game off for no good reason.
- In baseball, the best arm either pitches once every five or six days (if that best arm is connected to a starter) or randomly (if the best arm is connected to a reliever). In football, the best arm starts every game and finishes just about every game.
- In baseball, the workload of 97% of the pitchers is regulated so they can ease through the season. In football, players are expected to do anything they can, including risking their health, to be on the field and win that day’s game.
- Football players are expected to run through and into massive and violent athletes, then bounce up and get in the huddle for the next play. Baseball players might miss a month with a blister.
- Football allows for anticipation. The NFL plays only 17 regular-season games, spaced out by a week, giving fans time to mourn losses, celebrate victories and invest emotionally in the next game. Baseball expects fans to shrug off brutal losses.
- A football fan can watch every minute of every season that their favorite team plays in less than 60 hours a year. To watch every minute of every game in your favorite baseball team’s season would take more than 70 hours a month.
- When an NFL team rebuilds, it tries to do so in one offseason. A losing team will fire its coach and draft a quarterback, and if that team chooses well, it can make the playoffs the next season.
- When a baseball team rebuilds, it invests in the development of prospects who might or might not be good enough to elevate the franchise, and who might or might not be ready to win in the next five or 10 years.
- Revenue sharing means that Green Bay can compete with the New York and L.A. teams in football. A lack of revenue sharing means that the Mets can outspend a divisional opponent, Miami, by more than $250 million.
- When NFL players fight, they often punch each other in the helmet. Which is not bright, but it is an indication of toughness. When baseball players fight, they make weak slapping motions while hiding behind umpires and teammates. Which is smart but looks silly.
- Football offers the mystery of competing game plans. You could see an all-out blitz, a triple reverse or a halfback pass to a quarterback on the first play. Baseball game plans are subtle, perhaps not even discernible, and sometimes revolve around standing still and doing nothing — also known as taking pitches.
- Fantasy football is fun and easy. Fantasy baseball requires more time than your actual job.
- Americans love violence. Football is intentionally violent. Baseball is only accidentally violent.
- The perception of NFL owners is that they will spend whatever is necessary to compete. The perception of all but the biggest-market baseball owners is that they are cheap.
- My guess is that if the Vikings and the Twins opened their books to an independent accountant, you would find that they spend close to the same percentage of revenues on player salaries. In baseball, that makes you a pariah. In football, that makes you a hero.
- Football is Tom Cruise leaping from one biplane to another at the end of a billion-dollar action-adventure movie. Baseball is an Oscar Wilde play. You can argue that the latter is more artistic or impressive than the former. You can’t argue that it has any chance of being more popular in our current century.
