12/22/24
January 29, 2004
ESPN.com's Jim Caple borrows a page from Tom Boswell and warms the hearts of Pastime partisans everywhere by listing 37 reasons why the World Series is better than the Super Bowl. This seamhead is still applauding Caple's second-paragraph observation; I'm pretty sure Danielle Steel outsells Faulkner, too.
posted by Motown Mike to baseball at 01:49 PM - 9 comments
And to the World Cup Finals! :p
posted by billsaysthis at 02:00 PM on January 29, 2004
I'm with meatsaber: 16 Ws + No pay + One tin cup = Priceless.
posted by garfield at 02:27 PM on January 29, 2004
the average fan never even gets a chance to buy them -- the tickets are already distributed to corporate sponsors, city officials, players, ticket brokers, media bigwigs, celebrities and other special friends. I'd like to see some proof of this. But mostly, I agree with him.
posted by rocketman at 08:29 PM on January 29, 2004
Did he list the 1 reason why the Superbowl is better than the World Series? Actually, the Superbowl is my least favourite American football match of the season. It's massively overhyped, the ad breaks are far too long, and for some reason the NFL thinks I want to watch an utterly dreadful pre-game and half-time "show". The Champions League final is often a dull game, but at least the game itself feels like the most important part!
posted by salmacis at 04:57 AM on January 30, 2004
Did he list the 1 reason why the Superbowl is better than the World Series? lol...No, he didn't. Maybe Caple is so disdainful of the SB that he doesn't know or care that this year's is actually XXXVIII.
posted by Motown Mike at 09:06 AM on January 30, 2004
Of course he didn't, because he's part of that reason. But he's also, more immediately, part of reason number two: baseball culture is no longer even concealing its insecurity about its place in American life vis-a-vis the Super Bowl and football in general. Further evidence of Super Bowl envy can be seen in the promo MLB just rolled out today, and that's aired during SportsCenter, wherein a bunch of guys (who might actually have been atheletes, except I didn't recognize them) come home from a SB party, tell the wife (who, it is implied, didn't watch) that the game was OK, but that they kind of liked the commercial with the donkey, and then play an ad hoc wiffle game inside the house where they relive Game 3?, "No, Game 6", of the last series. Football's in baseball's head. Also, apart from almost a dozen of Caple's reasons essentially amounting to "the WS is older", reason 26 ought to get its own sitcom. The World Series isn't solely a North American concern -- there are also players from the Caribbean! And a couple developed nations in East Asia! You're ignorant if you complain about the word "World"! The bellylaughs you hear aren't just coming from soccerheads, but also from Gary ettman and David Stern.
posted by taupe at 04:23 PM on February 02, 2004
I et Gary's B. And didn't catch it on preview.
posted by taupe at 04:24 PM on February 02, 2004
taupe: "(B)aseball culture is no longer even concealing its insecurity about its place in American life vis-a-vis the Super Bowl and football in general." This is a fair point, and I suppose I'm a little guilty myself of "fooball envy"; I wouldn't have enjoyed Caple's piece (or Boswell's) as much if I wasn't. Here's one baseball fan who argues that the diamond game should realize how lucky it is *not* to be the NFL, and proudly embrace its niche status.
posted by Motown Mike at 11:26 AM on February 05, 2004
It doesn't really matter, because they're both inferior to the Stanley Cup finals... =D