The Quick and the... Interesting?

Alright, I've been promising and promising that I have some special content up my sleeves (Where does George W keep his armies?? In his sleevies!), however this isn't it. Just a warning post - gonna throw on a bunch of short and hopefully interesting things and get to bed. The weather isn't supposed to be good tomorrow and I want to make it to the gym. Company chocolates make my waist feel like... a vast waste land, complete with its own navel battle ground.

Managed to get some stuff done around the house, including the moving of "Christmas tree" into "Christmas south" - the basement. We have enough room now we don't have to dismantle the tree, so we won't. So much easier - except for the fake needles everywhere. Got in a pretty decent nap and actually watched some football. Darn bloggers keep talking about it, figure I should watch it a bit. Made me realize something about the United States, or maybe "North American" sports. The most popular sports in the US are football and baseball, but I don't have anything to back that up. I believe they are the top two, but next is probably basketball. Watching football made me realize what baseball and football have in common - they are both run by the coaches/managers.

Someone explained to me once why they loved baseball - it was all in the statistics and strategy of the game. To fully appreciate the game, you had to understand what the manager was doing and it was an intricate game of chess, combined with bursts of athletic skill. Football is much the same - the coaches play an abstract game of analysis, statistics and rule-knowledge. That is why people that are unfamiliar with the game see it as bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting. Football requires a lot of skill, athletic ability and endurance - more so than baseball I'd say - but there are several levels at which the game can be played. But both baseball and football are long periods punctuated by incredible athleticism and skill. Those short bursts stand out and pull the viewer in. The true aficionado looks at the plays, the scouting work, the preparation by the coaches and key players - truly a different level.

I'll contrast this with other team sports like hockey or soccer - they have systems devised by coaches and the coaches make adjustments, but each game has its own flow. To be played well, the players must be able to make adjustments, improvise and watch their teammates. The coaches create a framework to start from, but this isn't usually what is witnessed during the game. The coaches are there to watch how things are evolving and to keep the players focused on the correct aspects, keep them motivated and change the players if necessary. In this way, the coaches are more observers than in football or baseball.

After writing that out, I think basketball falls into the hockey/soccer model, being the other top professional team sport in North America.

That was a little off track of what I was going to say, but I'm not going to toss aside a good idea. I'll have to illustrate my contention that hockey and soccer and the same game another time.