The Super Bowl in prophecy

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2019/02/03/the-prophecy-of-daniel-about-the-super-bowl-has-come-true/

Clock management

I'll comment on this:

https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/10-questions-to-ask-a-young-earth-creationist

Here are 10 questions I’d like to ask of young earthers:

1. Can we start by agreeing that the Gospel is more about the Rock of Ages than the ages of rocks?

The centre of the Gospel is the crucified and risen Christ, and everything in the Old Testament leads up to that. Jesus, and not the age of my rock collection, is the heart of the Christian faith. 

Cutesy but disingenuous–as is clear from the next question (#2). 

Football blues

Some boys live for football. Intramural football is the highpoint of their life. They know it's not risk-free, but they only get once chance to be teenagers, so they make the most of it. 

It's a big letdown after they graduate from high school. The rest of their life is an anticlimax. They continue to watch football, but that's not the same thing has playing football. They look back on that time of life with bittersweet nostalgia, yearning to recapture their long-lost youth.

Of course there are more important things in life than football. But here's my point: Those who die in Christian will be 17 again. Maybe not literally 17, but those who die in Christ will be rejuvenated. Youthful and ageless. 

You're not condemned to look back vainly and longingly at all you lost, for you can look ahead to restoration. In a sense you come full circle, but better than ever. Christians have so much to look forward to. 

3 Reasons I’d (Still) Let My Sons Play Tackle Football

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/3-reasons-let-sons-play-tackle-football/

The ethics of football

Kirk Knudsen • 

I have an entirely different take on this issue. I started playing football in 7th grade, and played every year through my senior year of college (10 years total), at a Bible college in MN. I never suffered a major injury playing football nor missed time for a football injury, and have never suffered a head injury playing football or basketball (which I played for 12 years). I coached high school football for three years following college. I greatly enjoy the game. I think it would be helpful in this post to differentiate the injury status/level of various levels of football. As far as I know, most who have played football only through high school do not have anywhere near the traumatic head injury levels or long term effects professionals see The game gets exponentially bigger, faster, and stronger for each level beyond high school. The speed, strength, weight, and total time invested/involved all greatly impact the short and long-term effects of head or any other injuries.

To me it seems unfairly narrow, as well as inaccurate to say the only two reasons people would watch football are money or that people enjoy seeing each other hurt each other. There is much strategy, coaching, teamwork, planning, and athleticism to be observed. Moves and counter-moves for those who know the game make for interesting and engaging scenarios as teams seek to adjust to and stop each other from what they are trying to do. The game moves fast, generally involves much scoring, and takes a great deal of thought, team work, athleticism, and strategy to do it well, plus in any given game there are many individual match-ups to observe. Those are just a few more reasons to watch it. I know many who greatly enjoy watching football, and I've not heard one of them say they enjoy watching someone get hurt. That seems like a point to demonize those who oppose your position on this topic, which doesn't seem fair or necessary to me.

For me personally, I have learned more about leadership, coaching, team work, dealing with adversity, discipleship, relationships, conflict management, and working with others you don't like in football than in any other single venture. Those lessons have been highly valuable in my now 20+ years of vocational church ministry. That by itself suggests there are many reasons to like and participate in football. I've never been paid in any form for playing, nor benefitted monetarily. In the three years I coached, I was paid $800 for two of the seasons, averaging 20+ hours per week from August into November. I coached because it gave me (then a youth pastor) access into kids lives and into our schools doing something I knew and loved.

I have no interest in soccer. As a college player, I was 6' 6" and weighed 285. That won't work in soccer. Soccer allows for basically one kind of body type and a comparatively narrow set of skills to succeed. Football offers opportunity for athletes of many different skill sets, sizes, and athletic abilities to participate and be successful. The teamwork required allows men to work together in their respective tasks and be highly successful even if they never touch the ball or if their long-term endurance isn't a great strength (to be a great soccer player, you need to have the ball with some regularity and you need great endurance).

I think there are concerns, and you address some of them for football (which also apply to other sports too). Players are starting too young and expected to invest far too much time too early in their lives into sports. I don't think it benefits us to have elementary aged kids playing extensive game schedules in any sport. Second, more time needs to be given by schools and organizations offering football to training coaches well, instead of letting any warm-body coach. If football coaches from the junior high level up were offered more training in how to coach and teach players to avoid head injuries (and injuries in general) I think it would go a long way towards minimizing the injury problems. Finally, I think football at all levels need to continue to penalize hits to and from the head more aggressively. If players start missing game time for head hits, and unsafe play, they will decrease.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/02/time-national-conversation-football/#comment-3744269924

Contact sports

In this clip, David Platt makes some good points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve9jPfJeT2k

1. He can get away with it because he's such a likable guy. But as a rule, I think it's a mistake for pastors to scold parishioners about sports. They're talking to the wrong audience. They should be grateful that people do attend their church, given all the competition for their attention. 

2. A danger with invidious comparisons is that it cuts both ways. What if someone replies that he'd find church more exciting if the pastor didn't make it so boring. Are there things pastors can do to make church legitimately more interesting and engaging? 

3. Another issue is recognition that there are things we can change and things we can't. Scolding sports fans won't change minds. It's not likely to make them less fond of sports. Rather, it alienates the from the church.

A better strategy is to take advantage of popular interest in sports. Use that as a vehicle to reach the lost. Don't wait for sports fans to come to church; rather bring church to them! For instance:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/02/mounting-up-with-wings-like-eagles.html

Douglas Groothuis

Abstract: I argue that football is morally objectionable because it is intrinsically violent and thus is conducive to vice in both its players and its fans. By way of contrast, I argue that baseball is only contingently violent, that it is not based on violence, and that it is, as such, a morally superior sport. 

1. Football is intrinsically violent. It cannot be played without heavy padding and physical punishment. Professional players typically undergo multiple surgeries for repeated injuries. Many of these injuries are permanently debilitating. The nature of the sport encourages a toleration for, and even promotion of, violence. Players attempt to injure each other to take them out of the game. Many young men are seriously injured while playing football. Why risk the damage to a growing body? If the body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” and the temple of the Holy Spirit for the Christian, why should anyone treat one’s own body and other’s bodies to so much physical abuse? We were not designed for this kind of punishment.

http://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/DiscussionOnAustinSports.pdf

He raises some valid questions and concerns. That said:

i) There's the danger of elitism. Groothuis is a philosophy prof. The fact that football is unappealing to him isn't the benchmark for boys and men who have a passion for football.

ii) Overshadowing all of life is the inexorable specter of human mortality. That prompts us take risks we'd otherwise avoid, because sooner or later we're going to die anyway. Due, moreover, to the aging process, there's an unrepeatable window of opportunity to do certain things. If you wait too long, that's a lost opportunity you never get back. You can be health nut and still die of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. 

iii) There's lots of talk about "racial reconciliation", but few venues are better than a ball field to achieve that objective.

iv) We live in a society where the cultural elites are making every effort to suppress masculinity. But the predictable result is to make many young men recoil against feminism. It creates a backlash. 

If we don't have contact sports with rules and protective equipment, boys will resort to aggressive behavior without the safeguards. The alternative won't be less violence but more violence.

v) Speaking of which, I'm bemused by social commentators who say football is violent. In a very tame, domesticated way that's true, but we've become so spoiled by contact sports that we've forgotten what real male violence looks like. Left to their own devices, males have a propensity for extreme violence. Consider the Iroquois. That was a heathen warrior culture. Here's an example of what men are capable of doing when they lack any cultural Christian restraint:

As they went they saw the Iroquois braves slaughtering the remaining Indians [Hurons] in the village, setting the wigwams afire, and throwing the wounded people and little children into the flames. Both priests were tied to stakes. Mocking baptism, the Iroquois poured boiling water over their heads to scald them. They then cut off the nose, ears, lips, and other body parts of de Brebeuf, smashed his teeth with a club, put red hot hatchet blades on his shoulders, put hot coals on top of his head, and then smashed his skull with a tomahawk. They pulled out the eyes of Lalemont and forced hot coals into the sockets, they sliced open his thighs in the form of a cross and then burned him at the stake. Both priests prayed as long as they could and proclaimed their love and forgiveness for their torturers. (The account of their martyrdom was made public by some of the Indians who had witnessed it and later were converted to the Catholic Faith.) Because de Brebeuf died so stoically without crying out, something the Indians greatly admired, they cut out his heart and liver after his death and ate them raw, so they could, in their belief, obtain his kind of courage and ability to endure pain.

https://catholicexchange.com/the-martyrdom-of-st-john-de-brebeuf

That capacity is always lurking just under the surface. Remove Christian ethics, then watch men revert to unmitigated savagery. Instead of whining about the "violence" of contact sports, we should we grateful for outlets that channel and curb male aggression.  

Mounting up with wings like eagles

I'm usually fairly skeptical when athletes and other celebrities claim to be Christian, praise God, sport Bible verses or Christian symbols as tattoos on their bodies, and so forth. Their lived lives rarely seem to match their profession of faith. It just seems like they're paying lip service to Christianity.

That said, I'm still a bit wary in general, but I find reports about evangelical Christians on the Philadelphia Eagles have a ring of truth to them. For example, Eagles' QB Carson Wentz (injured before the Super Bowl) wanted to help make the Super Bowl an evangelistic opportunity. He has also launched the Audience of One (AO1) foundation to help "the less fortunate".

QB Nick Foles (who led the Eagles to their Super Bowl victory) has said he has always wanted to become a pastor. He's currently taking online classes at Liberty University toward that goal. He filmed a YouVersion video about some of his struggles with football and faith.

Tight end Trey Burton evidently serves as a team pastor and has helped baptize five of his fellow teammates. He wrote an article describing his faith.

Tight end Zach Ertz has said: "I was baptized in March, got married the next day...Our marriage has been built on that foundation from the word and Jesus, and it's changed my life. And just to have these guys hold me accountable on a daily basis has been phenomenal for me. I hope I do the same for them."

The Eagles' offensive coordinator Frank Reich earned an M.Div. from Reformed Theological Seminary and was a former president for RTS Charlotte.

Head coach Doug Pederson gave thanks to Jesus Christ after the Super Bowl win. Later he said: "It's all about the faith, it's all about our family, and it's all about the Philadelphia Eagles, and it is in that order." Only about a decade before he was the head coach for the Eagles, Pederson was the head coach for the football team of a private Christian high school, Calvary Baptist Academy.

Some professions of faith may be more credible than others. There are several other examples on the team.

Here's a video the Philadelphia Eagles released about the role of Christian faith on the team:

Tebow

I can't confirm the stats, so I can't comment on the apparent providential alignment, but putting aside the question of "coincidence", it's striking how he evangelized tens of millions of biblically illiterate, unchurched sports fans just by having eye blacks with Bible verses which they Googled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPkz6Cd4xGU

"Christianity wrapped in a flag"

From a recent exchange I had on Facebook with an evangelical leader:

Thinking about the weekend from thousands of miles away—Christianity wrapped in a nation’s flag obscures the cross…

I think that fails to engage the actual issue. It's true that sports and patriotism can be a substitute for religion. But I don't think that's what's driving the backlash.

i) At a mundane level, pro football is a business enterprise. We have athletes and managers who are snubbing their customer base. That has predictable consequences.

ii) More importantly, I suspect many Americans resent the protest because they see this as yet another example of secular progressives infiltrating and co-opting every social institution. Secular progressives have a strategy of taking over every social institution, to make it a vehicle for their political agenda. We are then required to submit to their ideology. Consider how ESPN was gratuitously commandeered to propagandize for the LGBT agenda. I think this is part of fueling the backlash. 

iv) Moreover, this has become very threatening. Under the Obama administration, executive agencies were commandeered to impose a secular progressive agenda on the nation. In addition, major corporations (e.g. Facebook, Google) have allied with the gov't in steamrolling critics. That endangers the civil liberties of many Americans. There's no escape: "You will be assimilated!"

Because an issue here is human rights.

But that begs the question. Another reason many Americans resent athletes protesting the national anthem/saluting the flag is because they reject the BLM narrative as a factually false narrative. They deny that police in general discriminate against blacks. 

This is a tactic of secular progressives. They build on a false premise. At the very least, their narrative is highly contestable. For instance:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451466/police-violence-against-black-men-rare-heres-what-data-actually-say

Yet we're supposed to grant their contention as an indisputable starting-point.

Free speech is a two-way street. Protest is a two-way street. Sports fans are entitled to counterprotest. And ultimately it's the fans who pay the bills. In addition, your claim about protected speech is confused. The First Amendment prohibits gov't from punishing speech. There's no prohibition against private boycotts. Consider the boycott MLK organized against segregated bussing.

I didn't suggest the players were boycotting anything. What you're really talking about isn't free speech, but paid speech. Whether sports fans are obligated to subsidize protestors.

Once again you're not following the argument. I didn't suggest the players are paid to sing the anthem. The point, rather, is that football fans ultimately pay their salaries, and the customer base has no obligation to subsidize their protest if the customer base doesn't share their politics.

Telling time by broken clocks: Trump v. the NFL

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451816/nfl-protests-trump-right

Trump vs. Tattooed Millionaires

https://www.city-journal.org/html/trump-vs-tattooed-millionaires-15457.html

Friday Night Calvinism

In my experience, freewill theists frequently misunderstand what Calvinists mean when they say God does everything for his own glory, and I think some Calvinists (e.g. John Piper) have contributed to that misunderstanding. I've discussed that before. 

But now, with the return of football season, I'll use a sports analogy. Suppose you were looking at the stats of a high school quarterback. In four years, he never scored a single touchdown. For that reason alone, you'd conclude that he's a dismal failure as a quarterback. 

By contrast, his teammates have an impressive record of touchdowns. You wonder why one of them didn't replace him.

On the other hand, he excels at intercepts, blocking, rushing touchdowns, hand-offs, and pass completion. If you were judging him on paper, you'd be puzzled by his uneven performance. How can he be so good at the other stuff, but never score a touchdown? 

Suppose, though, you watch him practice with his team. After a while it becomes apparent that he's a very talented athlete while his teammates are mediocre. If he wanted to, he could just teach them blocking while he scored all the touchdowns. 

It turns out that he's going out of his way to make them look good. Giving them opportunities to shine. They succeed because he's their enabler. His objective is to pass the ball or hand off the ball so that each of them can score touchdowns. 

Despite the fact that it's his teammates who always score the touchdowns, if becomes evident, if you know what to look for, where the real talent is coming from. So the stats are misleading. 

There's a paradoxical sense in which our quarterback glorifies himself by avoiding self-glorification and glorifying his teammates instead. He has the talent, but he diverts his talent and channels his talent into his teammates. He makes them look far better than they really are. His unobtrusive generosity is far more glorious than flaunting his athletic prowess and making himself look good by using his teammates to clear the way. 

Compare that to Phil 2:6-11. Everything redounds to the glory of Christ, but indirectly. He did not seek his own glory, yet his self-abnegation is glorious. He's not the beneficiary of vicarious atonement. Rather, he did that for the benefit of others. Yet he clearly gets all the credit. 

Courage, corporality, and the ghost in the machine

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/388335/print

Manhood deficit

So pro football player Don Jones was fined and suspended for expressing disapproval over Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend on national TV. A few observations:

i) I bet you far more football fans are offended by Michael Sam's action than Don Jones's reaction. So this reflects the contempt of Miami Dolphins' management for its core constituency. 

ii) Here's another point: football is supposed to be heteronormative. Traditionally, football is a symbol of masculinity. Jocks symbolize manliness. 

There are a few sports, like figure skating (assuming we call that a sport) which showcase femininity, but historically, sports is more of a guy thing.  

Football ought to be an arena in which natural masculine traits are valued. In that respect, football players can be role models. 

Of course, football players can behave badly in other respects. It doesn't make you a moral paragon. 

But the Dolphins management is sabotaging a traditional appeal of football. The Dolphins management suffers from a manhood deficit. They instantly capitulate to a subversive mentality that's the antithesis of football. 

Is football unchristian?

http://erlc.com/article/is-football-too-violent-for-christians

Sports and Moral Superiority

http://www.tedkluck.com/?p=746

HT: Paul Manata

Football vs. Baseball

This will be Triablogue's most controversial post ever!

I received an email with a link to philosopher Douglas Groothuis' critique of football in favor of baseball. Here's the responses I offered:

---------------------

1. Football is intrinsically violent. It cannot be played without heavy padding and physical punishment. Professional players typically undergo multiple surgeries for repeated injuries. Many of these injuries are permanently debilitating. The nature of the sport encourages a toleration for, and even promotion of, violence. Players attempt to injure each other to take them out of the game. Many young men are seriously injured while playing football. Why risk the damage to a growing body? If the body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” and the temple of the Holy Spirit for the Christian, why should anyone treat one’s own body and other’s bodies to so much physical abuse? We were not designed for this kind of punishment.

ME: I don't get it. What does he mean that football *cannot* be played without heavy padding and physical punishment? I myself have played many padless pick-up football games that occurred without "punishment" (a somewhat subjective term, btw, since an activity may be more or less physically demanding on a person depending on the shape they're in). And I assume he's not talking about flag and two-hand touch. But if violence and heavy padding are *necessary* to football, what, pray tell, are thousands of people playing when they play flag and two-hand touch *football*? Furthermore, What about soccer or rugby? They don't wear "heavy padding," but often have as much or more "physical punishment" than an american football game. What about wrestling, like collegiate or olympic? This is a very technical and chess-like sport. Moreover,wrestling was known by the Israelites, are we to think the youth never engaged in matches? Never tried to mimick the Greeks in this way? Moreover, professional players in all sports undergo debilitating injuries from which they suffer permanent damage. I also daresay that this reasoning would make certain lines of work "immoral" since we're "fearfully and wonderfully made." Has Groothuis ever watched the Discovery Channel's "World's Most Dangerous Job"? Why would someone who's body is the Holy Spirit's temple do deep sea crab fishing?

I'd also add that it is *contingent* to football that "players *attempt* to injure each other and take them out of the game." How does Groothuis even know this, first off. Has he taken a poll? I know many players at high level high school ball (we won the CIF championship) who didn't attempt to injure other players, and indeed they felt bad when another player got injured. I know more than a few college players, and I went to high school with Charlie Joiner's daughter. He didn't indicate (at get-together's at her house) that he ever attempted to injure people. Second, there have been many baseball players who have "attempted" to injure another player. This "attempting to injure" is contingent and not necessary to either sport. Lastly, the violence is contingent upon the position. Receivers don't try to tackle the defense. Most of the time, running backs try to *avoid* tackles. So, some positions are more active, physical, or violent than others. Same with baseball, see below.

2. Baseball is not intrinsically violent, but only contingently violent; it much less violent than football overall. A runner barreling home from second base on a single to the outfield may need to collide with the catcher in order to attempt to score. However, his is not necessitated by the game as such, and the catcher is well-protected by his pads and mask. Many games are played where this kind of contact never occurs. Further, many runners will try to avoid the catcher entirely with a hook slide.

ME: So wearing pads in the catcher's case is something that *negates* the violent nature of this position in baseball? But with football, being "well-protected" with padding only serves to show its violent nature! But while we're on the catcher. We all know their careers are usually cut brutally short. Catchers typically suffer debilitating knee injuries for the rest of their lives. They also get hit by pitches and *must* block the plate from a hulking, 250 lb roid-raging base runner who *must* cross home plate. What worse, only one of these guys is wearing padding — the catcher — and that padding is rather meager. There are times in the game of baseball, then, when violence is "necessitated." So, we have *certain positions* that "must" get involved in brutal physical alteration, and this is an essential part of the game when those situations arise. Moreover, many football games are played where the physical contact is at a minimum, and the more prepared and physically stronger players can take the bumps and bruises that happen in the game. And of course, as mentioned, many players will *attempt* to *avoid* the hit, just like some base runners will.

3. Baseball is intellectually superior to football, because of the degree of strategy, finesse, and intelligence required to play it well. Football knows of many plays and patterns, but most of them reduce to speed, strength, and coordination--as opposed to intelligence.

ME: Sorry, it's *this* that doesn't appear well thought-out. I grew up playing *both* baseball *and* football. I was a thrid-baseman and clean-up hitter in baseball. I was a fullback and insider linebacker for most of my football "career," but at the end just played outside linebacker, as positions became more specialized and rest became more important to play at a high level. So, I know both games. Speaking for myself, I have always thought football required far more intelligence. The playbook is typically massive and complex, and players are required to memorize much or all of the playbook. I never once had a playbook to memorize in baseball. Further, while the *individual players* in a football play must be fast and strong, that doesn't mean that *the play* reduces to such. For there is misdirection, tricks, traps, and several moving parts combining to pull off a highly developed play. Typically, quarterbacks and middle linebackers must be *very* intelligent — as far as what is required for the game — and often spend *hours* not only memorizing their own plays, but also knowing where everyone on their side of the ball is and must be. They typically watch *hours* of footage from the other team, learning what to expect and coming up with plans for how to respond to the *dozens* of various positions they might find themselves in: whether it's 1st and 10, 2nd and 5, 3rd down, 4th down, what quarter it is, what half it is, what the score is, which player is on the field (which often determines what plays might be run, but then there's tricks with players who are usually only in on third down short yardage run plays, only to have it turn into a passing play, etc).

In baseball, a pitcher with less than a cannon arm (such as Greg Maddox) can be one of the best pitchers in baseball in light of his intelligence in pitch selection, control, knowledge of batters, and fielding ability. Nothing analogous is the case with football, to my knowledge.

ME: This is just an autobiographical remark. First, this just shows that more than a "cannon arm" is required of good pitchers. Indeed, of the very best pitchers, I'd say *all* of them had more than a "cannon arm." Baseball is full of stories about guys with "cannon arms" who burn out early, or never make it. We can also give examples with football. The great linebacker Sam Mills, who at 5'9" was one of the best linebackers of all time, largely due to his heart and game preparation, his knowledge of the game (which is why he became a coach). About cannon arms, what about, say, Joe Montana, who was drafted in round three because of his weak arm (a rating of six). Montana was one of the best quarterbacks ever, and intelligence and knowledge factored large.

Historically, intellectuals have been drawn to write and reflect on baseball.

ME: In America, maybe; it is the national pastime, after all. But consider intellectuals in other countries who write on soccer or rugby. Or consider ancient intellectuals who write on popular sports of the day. Baseball much older too, so we should expect this "historical" contingency. Of course, intellectuals have written on football, e.g.,

http://www.amazon.com/Football-Philosophy-Going-Popular-Culture/dp/0813124956

http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Athletic-Beauty-Ulrich-Gumbrecht/dp/067402172X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306805645&sr=8-1

4. Aesthetically, baseball is superior because of its unique sense of time. There is no clock in baseball.

ME: Yeah, not sure about that. Anyway, football gives us elegance and simplicity, when we consider a play qua play. The individual parts may not be as elegant (though I dare say one cannot say this after watching a quarterback thread a needle through several defenders while his receiver effortlessly catches the ball and runs like a gazelle into the end zone), but the entire play often is. But on this, see Stanford prof Hans Gumbrecht, who loves football and argues for its aesthetic beauty, arguing it's just as much art as anything else artsy is. Lastly, you can have a *perfect* season in football. Watching the Patriots 2007 season was to watch something *beautiful*. Also, let's not forget 1972 Dolphins, who went undefeated in season and post-season. Just beautiful; especially considering they did this with the "no name" defense. Lastly, Groothuis uses this to claim Baseball is more Christian, but Christianity has an end to our games down here. History won't continue forever without end. Time is important in Christianity.

In football, the game is often over (determined) before it is over (temporally), rendering the final minutes meaningless and pointless. In baseball, as in the Christian world view, a measure of hope is always alive until the game is over. Near-miraculous comebacks are possible. When they occur, there is no greater drama in all of sports.

ME: Hardly, which is why football has a saying, "A minute is an eternity, in football." If we're going to get all "Christian worldview" here, we might think of "With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day."

Speaking of comebacks, let's not forget the 1994 Bills down 34 - 3 in the second half. The Bill's star quarterback was out, so was their star running back. Things looked bleak. The fans left early, dejected. The Bills came back and won in overtime. If we're going to talk about football, hope, and the Christian worldview, this seems very close to the crucifixion of Jesus. All looked lost. The messiah was out of the game. The disciples scattered, dejected. But Jesus pulled off the greatest comeback ever. Or let's not forget the 1980 49ers, who overcame a 28 point deficit, trailing 35-7 at one point in the game. I could go on.

And in Christianity, it was over before it started. The enemy cannot mount a comeback. So, even on his own terms . . .

Moving on.

The pace of baseball is far more deliberate and delicate than football, given that there is no time clock. It is thus more conducive to patience and reflection.

ME: In football, there's *extensive* study that goes into a game. The majority of reflection is done during the week, but let's not forget the 15 minutes of reflection at half-time. Serious analysis and adjustments are often made, sometimes resulting in fantastic and amazing comebacks, see above. Also, one must make wise decisions in a short amount of time. Should we run or pass on 3rd? Should we go for a field goal or try to score a touchdown? Should we go for a two-point conversion, or kick the extra point. Often, these decisions can have huge ramifications. There is something to be said for patient decision making, but there's also something to be said for deliberate, immediate decisions. This is similar to the military, where intelligent and highly trained men have to make heavy and right decisions in a short time frame. Yes, there's something to be said for a long game of chess, but there's also something to be said of speed chess too.

6. Both baseball and football require athletic skill for their performance, but I venture to say that an expertly turned double-play, a diving catch in the outfield, or a deftly stolen base (particularly of home) demonstrates more athletic and aesthetic excellence than anything in football. Moreover, nothing in any sport has the dramatic effect of a grand slam home run, especially in a close game.

ME: An expertly turned double reverse finished with a half-back pass to a receiver waiting in the endzone, a diving catch 70 yards downfield, or a running back beautifully juking the defense out of their jocks, running a 98 yard touch down. Moreover, I'll put up Hail Mary's, the immaculate reception, or Jack Dempsey's kicking a 63 yard field goal with 3 seconds left to win the game, etc., up against game winning grand slams, exciting as they are.

7. No one can hog the ball or exclude other players from play in baseball. This is largely because baseball is the only team sport where the defense controls the ball.

ME: This just is to say that football isn't baseball. In baseball, everyone on defense can touch the ball. In football, everyone on defense can touch the ball, but on offense, certain players cannot (unless, there's a fumble). So what? I find the silent, unnoticed, soldiers in the trenches — aka, linemen — to fill and honorable role. But while we're on fairness, what about the salary cap? Any team can win any year in football. Any given Sunday!

8. In baseball, apart from the aberration of the designated hitter (a recent perversion only used in one league), all the players must function on both defense and offense.

ME: Again, this is just to say football isn't baseball. But at youth levels, many players frequently play both sides; and in pro-football, at any moment the offense can become the defense and vice versa. (And let's not forget refrigerator Parry!) So, a quarterback isn't expected to tackle well, but he should be able to do it well-enough to stop a linebacker who has intercepted his pass and is running toward the end zone.

More could be said, but if these reflections are correct, baseball is superior to football as a cultural form.

ME: Weighed and found wanting. But if Groothuis disagrees, we can fight it out :-) This isn't to say I am anti-Baseball. I enjoy it very much. I'm a Padres fan. Some of my favorite all-time players are Mike Schmidt, Don Mattingly, Steve Garvey, Tony Gwynn, Fernando Valenzuela, and Randy Johnson. My favorite World Series was the 2001 D-Backs v. Yankees. I will don a rally cap. I like watching games with a big bag of seeds. I have carried a broom around a ballpark, rooting for a sweep. So I have nothing against baseball.

In any case, maybe we can let George Carlin settle things (HT Peter Pike):