Playing by the numbers

Today is opening day of baseball season. On the drive in to work this morning, Canada's Broadcaster interviewed a woman who wrote a book about baseball. I know! I was totally surprised, too, but apparently there is enough to say about baseball to fill a book. Anyway. She said that one of the wonderful things about the game is that it can take a long time to end. I mean, a loooonnng time. 27 innings constitutes a substantial portion of the day (insert tongue-sticking-out-emoji)

Alright, alright, so 27 innings would be unusual but honest to Pete, the game does evolve slowly, does it not? And after all of that three up-and-three downing, you are not guaranteed high scoring results.

Then it occurred to me... hang on a minute!  These are complaints often leveled against the Beautiful Game of football (soccer, if you must). North American men claim a sport needs non-stop action and astronomic scores in order to be entertaining. This doesn't explain televised golf or fishing shows. Or bowling. The theory disregards the endless, unendurable time outs, consultations, and team changes of the National Football League. It ignores the fact that in both oval-ball football and basketball, the final score is inflated by 'seven points for this' and 'three points for that' rather than reflecting one point earned for each successful attempt at a goal or basket.

To end a post that had far too many numbers in it, I have only this to say: There's no accounting for taste.