Football rules - Ingles

Does baseball stand a chance against football?

Baseball tries. This weekend, it offered the opulent Red Sox and Yankees in a noisy showdown in Boston. There was a bad-tempered rematch of last year's National League Championship Series between San Francisco and Philadelphia. Even the Chicago Cubs—winners of seven in a row until Sunday's loss to Cincinnati—became (slightly) intriguing. The Cubs remain 5,600 games out of first place, but the streak was a sweet, fleeting thrill.

Still, everywhere you look, the NFL is inhaling the oxygen, hijacking the attention. Football returned from its almost five-month lockout and blasted through the front door like a vagabond uncle, back from many unexplained weeks on the road.

"Did I tell you about my backpacking journey to Bhutan?" football asks, removing its rucksack and propping a pair of muddy leather boots on the kitchen table. "Or how I stole a prince's motorcycle and puttered across Mongolia? Or what about the time I escaped a Great White in Cape Town by lassoing its dorsal fin and riding all the way to the Maldives—where I opened a floating, three-star Michelin bistro with Angelina Jolie and Eckhart Tolle."

At the other end of the kitchen table, baseball—which has done nothing but try and entertain you since March—rolls its eyes and simmers.

But the rest of us are charmed and seduced. Against our better judgment, we're suckers. We can't help but forgive football.

It's hopeless. The NFL behaved badly and got zero tough love after its extended, exasperating work stoppage. If anything, the football madness has only intensified. If you've been telling people for years that football has replaced baseball as the true national pastime, this week has driven home that stale, obvious point.

Football rules. Football gets away with everything. Football doesn't study and aces the midterm. Football borrows the car, dents the rear fender, and Dad doesn't notice.

Look how everyone slobbered over the opening week of the 2011 NFL season, with its caffeinated surge of trades and free agent signings, as baseball's low-watt trading deadline passed with less than a polite burp. Look at the excitement over new laundry for Nnamdi Asomugha, Chad Ochocinco, Kevin Kolb, and Plaxico Burress. Never mind that Burress is about to be 34 and hasn't played football for two seasons.

The NFL is eating everything in baseball's refrigerator. The rivalry between the Jets and Patriots already feels frothier than the Yankees and Red Sox. There's "Dream Team" boasting in Philadelphia, where Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Vince Young join a franchise reborn under Michael Vick. If the magical Phillies weren't sailing atop the NL East, they might cease to exist.

Consider Rex Ryan's leg tattoo. That freaky leg tattoo has gotten more love than the Major League All-Star Game and the entire AL Central combined. Eventually this leg tattoo will have its own Coors Light commercial, its own summer football tattoo camp and run for Senate in New Jersey. Even the Brett Favre comeback rumors don't seem to be bothering anyone. Let Brett back! Give him a Rascal scooter and the Raiders!

It's as if the lockout never happened. There's no skepticism, no correction, no tamping down of the football hype.

Baseball, with its meandering 162-game season, can't compete with football's charge. Baseball is a traditionalist's sport, fond of its history, rewarding patience and consistency over time. Phew. I sound as if I'm talking about an organic bakery.

Football embraces speed, the modern and the technological advantage. It delivers everything right away, in a full, 3,500-calorie burst, then rewinds the instant replay and serves it to you again, with a giddy Chris Berman narration.

And here's the thing: even with the 24/7, 12-month coverage, the NFL is a manageable addiction. For all the fuss about how football's popularity is a reflection upon how much fans seek collisions and mayhem, I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a 16-game season. For a sports fan with a crazed schedule, 16 games is a reasonable commitment—you only have to engage once a week. Baseball fans appreciate the ebb and flow of a long season, but less can be more. You adore watching 13 episodes of "Mad Men." Would you like 130 episodes?

This is not to say that baseball can't be captivating. It's a wonderful sport to see in person, if you can find tickets and parking that don't set you back a car payment (not always easy). You can wander in late, find time to appreciate the aesthetics, and marvel at how little the sport on the field has changed since you were young. You can bring the kids without panicking that they'll come back sounding like members of an outlaw motorcycle gang. You can have a conversation with the folks sitting next to you. A conversation!

Yes, baseball isn't a riveting television sport, especially during the regular season, but it's silly to employ TV ratings as a measure of a sport's worthiness. (Baseball remains the best radio sport, however.) Last year's Giants World Series title was as entertaining a sports event as you'll see—an oddball team of phenoms and rise-to-the-occasion misfits that neatly personified an eccentric city. (Plucky Texas, which knocked off the defending champion Yankees, was a pleasure as well.) It would have been nice if it lasted more than five games, but its meek television ratings didn't diminish its joy.

It's okay that baseball's popularity can't match football's—a true baseball fan shouldn't care. But it's remarkable to sit here in early August, when pennant races are starting to roil, and hear them drowned out by passion for a sport that's still a month away from its official kickoff. Why does that strange man with the cowboy hat and beard ever ask if we're ready for some football? The answer is never "no." (source WSJ.com)