asks Dayn Perry of Baseball Prospectus.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7792
It's football's sanctioned violence that urges so many players to seek such self-destructive edges over their rivals for roster spots and opponents on the field, and it's also that sanctioned violence that leads to violent tendencies among players, even at the lower levels. It doesn't take an accomplished theorist to surmise that, in the NFL, the scourge of domestic violence is an echo of those early tendencies. While no major sport does an exemplary job of punishing domestic violence, the NFL stands out as a main offender. In 2006, for instance, the Washington Post compiled a non-exhaustive list of NFL player arrests for the year. Of those 41 (!) arrests, five were for various flavors of domestic assault. Those numbers are hardly aberrant. They also don't include some of the more famous incidents (Warren Moon, Lawrence Phillips, Michael Pittman, and, of course, O.J. Simpson).
None of this is meant to imply that baseball is somehow a paragon of responsibility and virtue—it isn't. However, the facts bear out a few straightforward claims. Major League Baseball is less deadly, less physically damaging, less imbalanced in terms of player-owner relations, less socially perilous, and less culpable when it comes to the pervasive "Steroids Age" than is the more popular and more profitable NFL. That the NFL is, in fact, so popular and profitable should be a source of shame to American consumers—ruthlessness may be profitable, but it's not a virtue. It's a blood sport, so lavish it in scorn, not dollars.
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 July 2008 16:38 (seventeen years ago)
tell dayn perry of baseball prospectus to hitch up his skirt and go back to his tea party.
― chicago kevin, Friday, 18 July 2008 16:58 (seventeen years ago)
"less socially perilous"
what does this even mean? like you can fuck Madonna if you play baseball but only like Jessica Simpson in the NFL?
― Euler, Friday, 18 July 2008 17:08 (seventeen years ago)
Of those 41 (!) arrests, five were for various flavors of domestic assault.
Haven't checked, but I'd imagine this is somewhere around the average for the general population as well.
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 18 July 2008 18:26 (seventeen years ago)
i would not be too eager to watch boxing or MMA with that guy
― deeznuts, Friday, 18 July 2008 18:28 (seventeen years ago)
but half of America doesn't stay in to watch boxing every Sunday for 5 months.
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 July 2008 19:35 (seventeen years ago)
so this guy has an equation that balances popularity vs brutality?
― chicago kevin, Friday, 18 July 2008 19:46 (seventeen years ago)
what's his point? that he's jealous that baseball is no longer america's past time?
― chicago kevin, Friday, 18 July 2008 19:47 (seventeen years ago)
the fact that brett myers still gets to take the mound after beating a woman up in public is more appalling to me than any recent legal infractions in the nfl that i can think of
this is hackish, irresponsible bullshit, the kind that you'd expect to highlighted on FJM, not BP
― cankles, Friday, 18 July 2008 20:30 (seventeen years ago)
*expect to see
leonard little.
― chicago kevin, Friday, 18 July 2008 20:47 (seventeen years ago)
recent!
― cankles, Friday, 18 July 2008 21:12 (seventeen years ago)
i don't put a statute of limitations on taking the field of play after killing someone then getting caught liquored up behind the wheel again.
― chicago kevin, Friday, 18 July 2008 21:13 (seventeen years ago)
quit shitting on my point!!!
― cankles, Friday, 18 July 2008 21:16 (seventeen years ago)
I would like to state for the record that this person is not me and is in no way related to me.
― HI DERE, Friday, 18 July 2008 21:23 (seventeen years ago)
A colleague and I have talked about developing a course on the philosophy of sport, so maybe we'll ask this question in class. But probably not since it's moronic.
― Euler, Saturday, 19 July 2008 15:23 (seventeen years ago)
oh for heaven's sakes, morbius.
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Monday, 21 July 2008 21:02 (seventeen years ago)
what can I say, you know I fucking hate football with the power of a thousand suns.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 16:40 (seventeen years ago)
ok, keeping with that spirit i'm going to go round up some garage punk dirtbags who fucking hate all sports and send them over to ilbb to troll around there.
it's ok because they hate baseball with the power of only, like, 250 suns.
― chicago kevin, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 16:56 (seventeen years ago)
ck, gabbneb is already on ilbb -- there's no need to actually find MORE d-bags
― David R., Wednesday, 23 July 2008 17:12 (seventeen years ago)
yeah patient zero is already in effect
― omar little, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 17:50 (seventeen years ago)
morbius you should have a better thing to do with your time. which football player would you blap, btw?
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 23 July 2008 18:34 (seventeen years ago)
I always liked Ricky Williams, i'd even smoke with him in the morning.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 19:23 (seventeen years ago)
wau
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 23 July 2008 19:37 (seventeen years ago)