Why is baseball considered an intellectual game over football (read details and you will see why I ask)?

Question

First let me start by saying, I love baseball, soccer, hockey, and american football. But every time I see an argument when a football fan belittles baseball and says it is boring, then baseball fans comeback with, "well you just stick to people knocking each others heads off and we we stick to our game of intellect.

Now the last time I checked most (probably 99%) football players spend "at least" one year in college. Where as a majority of baseball players come straight out of high school. Also, a lot of undrafted players coming from other countries come from impoverished lands and have very little education. Now, the NBA is the epitome of stupid, and you see why the league is full of thugs. Just look at their draft policy of the past.

Secondly, as a homage to Bill Walsh, offenses are very sophisticated and takes intellect from players and coaches to efficiently run them. In baseball you pretty much go through the motions. It doesn't take a big brain to swing a bat.

Your Thoughts?

Answer 1

Well as far as I know, Football is the most all intense sport. Learning a playbook isnn't exactly a piece of cake. I can attest to that. Ga.Tech. c/o 93. I've played every sport in high school and football is by far more intellect. While baseball is more reflex and hand eye coordination. Basically, like Geico, even a caveman can do it.

Answer 2

"Most" athletes that go to college do so only on a sports scholarship and their acedemic record is either spotty or forged.

There may be hundreds of plays in football, but there are also 50 players. The coaches/coordinators have to think of the plays, not the players, the players have to execute.

If you think this is tough however, consider this.
In a bottling plant, engineers and technicians create these huge machines to line up, convey, print bottling info, apply labels, cap and box these bottles for delivery.
The person that runs the machine is responsible for Loading in the caps, loading in the labels, pressing start when he begins work, stopping if there is a problem. His job is mostly about attendence. It's certainly a complicated machine, but doesn't mean he's some sort of genius.

If you were to take the athlete out of the player, what would you be left with?

As you mentioned, NBA is full of thugs, if not for basketball, their futures are far from set.
NFL is full of really big guys who can be dumb at lamp posts. If you were to look at the collective IQs by position, you may find a noticeable difference at QB (perhaps, I don't know for sure), but the others?

Greg Maddux seems like he could have made it on the outside for sure. He has a degree in economics (if I am not mistaken). But again, is he the exception or the rule.
Dave Winfield seemed very intelligent and he was drafted by 3 different sports.
With his personality and ego, Rickey Henderson would not have made it.

I don't know if this helps or not. Baseball is probably more about physics than any other sport, but that doesn't mean the people that excel can apply it.

There was this story I read in a book on baseball about Ty Cobb and Thomas Edison.
He went to see Cobb play and did some math on the trajectory of the ball, release point, speed, and Cobbs batting.
He then took some batting practice and did well.
Can't be sure how accurate the story is or how well I remembered it, but it is a game of math, not because of the statistics, but the statistics arose because of the math.

Answer 3

Yes, while some players in football need to have smarts (pretty much just the QB) the rest of the players try to push each other out of the way. Not the most intellectually challenging task. Yes the coaches in football are geniuses.

But baseball is all a mind game. The whole thing.
The catcher sends a series of disguised signs to the pitcher while the runner on second trys to decipher the code and relay the message to the batter. The pitcher selects a pitch to throw and where to throw it. If they want to get a double play he needs to keep the ball down in the zone, preferably with some downward movement. I have also seen the catcher set up inside early, then jump outside just before the pitch in order to throw off the batter who is thinking the pitch will be on the inner half of the plate. The batter reads the sign from the 3rd base coach. Is it a hit and run, straight steal, bunt, or is he swinging away. If the batter correctly guesses the pitch, watch out the ball may be in the parking lot. If he guesses fastball and a change up comes, it will almost always be a swing strike and the batter looks really silly.

The managers play for favorable situations. Lefty batters typically don't hit left handed pitching too well.

Then there is the double switch. (only in the NL)

All this being said, I have yet to scratch the surface of the mind games that are ever present in Baseball.

Don't get me wrong, football is great, but only a few people need to have smarts for the team to work. In baseball the whole team needs to be in tune with the intricacies of the game.

Answer 4

I pick baseball because it is a game of skill and competition WITHOUT necessarily any kind of involvement with trash talking or more importantly, violence. Sure there can be instances of teams not liking one another or fans that despise the opposition, but the players can play baseball without getting into any of that. Fans can and do also respect excellence in baseball when it's even being accomplished by the other team. Plenty of times you can see fans applaud an opposing pitcher who has a no hitter or loses one near the end of a ballgame. Back to one of my all important points and that is that on every play in baseball there's such an enormously decreased chance that a player will be injured. Football can NOT be described this way with the level of aggression that players are supposed to perform at. Basketball now incorporates flagrant fouls because it has gotten so bad and we all know that hockey does nothing to discourage fighting, let alone the acceptable hard checking and other aspects that result in toothless players. I guess you could say that I think baseball represents more of a what I could say is a pure sporting contest.

Answer 5

OK, speaking strictly as an ex-pitcher here, so I'm a little biased. It's a constant mind game. Is he expecting a fastball on the first pitch? Who throws a changeup on a 3-1 count with the bases loaded? Should I throw it anyway because he's not looking for it? Or, is he expecting me to do the opposite of what makes the most sense? Where does he want the pitch to be? Does he know that I know he can't go to the opposite field, so of course I'll put it on the outside corner? And on and on forever. By the way there is NOTHING, I mean NOTHING in the world quite like making a batter look stupid.
Also, most of those players that come right out of high school to baseball spend at least 3-5 years in the minor leagues learning nothing but baseball, which in my humble opinion puts them a little ahead of college players who have to actually go to school in the meantime. I mean "ahead" in terms of pure baseball knowledge, not general intellect. I think you would agree that (for example) Chipper Jones has a good head for the game (and he came out of H.S.).
Good discussion question for Friday night at a sports bar, preferably at that time of season when both sports are on at the same time.

Answer 6

Neither of them are really sports where you have to be smart its the coaches/managers who have to do the thinking the players just have to listen to what they say and play the game.

I watch all sports (except soccer) but you need more skill then intellect to play each game.

In baseball you need to know when to swing and where the ball will end up. Then the fielders need to know where the ball will land.

In football the QB has to know where he is throwing to,is his pocket broken,what routes are my receivers running. And the receivers have to know where the QB will throw to.

In basketball they have to know where the ball will come down and get it in the hoop. Along with tricking the defenses.

Really there is no sport that requires a lot of intellect or a lot more intellect then the others. I am a football fan but I'dd have to say Baseball takes the most skill, you have people of all sizes playing the game unlike in basketball where you need skill but you must be this tall and in football where if your big and have little skill you can be an offensive line men.

Answer 7

There are maybe five good essays about football in the history of the sport.

There's several hundred about baseball.

Football on teevee is one of the worse possible events -- because while the actual play action is pretty good (especially since the overhead cam was introduced), the amount of deadweight in the gamecast is awful -- players getting back up, walking back to the line, watching the zebras confer, watching them continue to confer, waiting for the IR review, making the call, the coach looking grim (do they ever do anything else?)... snore. About 90% of the on-air time is about setting up the play, then the play happens ka-bang!, and then it's on to the play aftermath and setting up the next play. I don't know how people watch this AND claim it is so exciting. I guess it gives plenty of free time to wander to the refrigerator.

Baseball gamecasts have a lot of downtime as well, but that doesn't have to be the case, it's just how Fox utterly mucks up its productions.

Answer 8

i think that's an old stereotype that's just lasted through the decades. football was basically just running all the way through the 1960's. although there was a passing game it was really the run that dominated offense.
that kind of grind it out, head bashing, bone crunching type of offense was a stark contrast to the intricate strategems of baseball that date back to tug mcgraw and the early 20th century.
it wasn't until the afl came along that football really started to emphasize the passing game. former coach and current owner of the oakland raiders was one of the innovators in this field. the 'long bomb' was a trademark of the raiders all the way through the late 80s and many other afl teams employed it as well.
that led to very sophisticated defenses to stop it such as the cover 2. i think football is every bit as intellectual as baseball. football players spend hours and hours each week watching film of themselves and other teams and play books are look like a set of encyclopedias.
so i think in the end it's just a perpetuated myth.

Answer 9

I think you're missing the point--you don't have to be intellectual to play the game. The amount of schooling you have plays no part in your ability to play a sport.

Baseball is often seen as a more intellectual sport because of the strategy involved. I think that NFL offenses are very complex and require a great deal of work and effort, but the strategy in the NFL is more " know the play, and be in the right place at the right time to make the catch." There aren't any set plays in baseball. You do your thinking on the fly. There's more finesse involved in baseball. You play percentages way more. Moves you make in one inning won't necessarily come to fruition until later innings, a luxury that isn't afforded in football.

Answer 10

first, i'll say i like both sports equally. however, i think baseball requires more brain skill. yes, you do need to be strong, but you need more skill to decide at what time you should swing and how high or low you need to swing the bat. pitchers and catchers try to understand batters' weaknesses and come up with strategy. outfielders and infielders look at where a batter hits the ball most and adjust themselves to each batter. in football, the strategy is either to keep the defense away from your quarterback, or if you are on defense to try to get the ball. the only people in football that require a lot of brain skill are the kicker and the quarterback. in baseball everyone needs to have 'intellect'