15 Reasons why Arena Football is better than Baseball
Dan Ryan
Wednesday April 11, 2001
Baseball the American past time? Only if you can remember Gary Coleman having a meaningful television career. It’s a new millennium, a new age, a new… God, I’m writing promo copy that David Cooper should be shelling out the bucks for and not Sheller.
Anyway, to celebrate the AFL’s 15th anniversary, here’s 15 reasons why our favorite sport is better than that other game being played this time of year, and I don’t mean soccer:
15. Arena Football scores usually run between 40 and 50 points per team. Baseball lets us see a 4-3 game. Compelling.
14. Arena Football has Jill Arrington on its broadcasts.. Baseball? Joe Garigiola.
13. Arena Football lets Grand Rapids and Oklahoma City go head-to-head with New York and Los Angeles.
12. Baseball purists pine away while reminiscing about Maris and Mayes and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Arena Football’s only sign of age is Ben Bennett’s receding hairline. But, ah, those Bruisers of ’88 and that Drive of ’92….
11. Arena Football challenges us sportswriters to come up with all the different variants to describe Barry Wagner scoring four touchdowns. Baseball forces us to chronicle John Rocker blowing a save in the ninth or blowing off steam to SI.
10 In Arena Football, $252 million will bankroll half the league. In baseball that same amount gets you one guy who’ll make an out 62 percent of the time.
9 Arena Football teams are named after Arnold Schwazeneggar movies. Baseball teams are named for smelly foot apparel.
8 Arena Football games are played in air-conditioned comfort. Baseball is played outside on hot summer nights.
7 Arena Football games have killer music from Guns-N-Roses and Metallica jamming from the soundspeakers. Baseball has John Fogerty’s "Centerfield’’
6 In Arena Football, the teams in South Florida, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee and Detroit still are in the playoff picture in July. In baseball… [insert your own punchline here]
5 Arena Football gives players whose college had either a direction or hyphen in its a name a chance to really kick some ass.
4 Arena Football games are fast-paced and usually let out by 10 p.m. Baseball games usually pre-empt Conan O’Brien.
3 Kevin Costner has not made an Arena Football movie.
2 Arena Football has never had a regular season work stoppage.
1 Arena Football never had Steinbrenner. Never will. Hopefully.
Dan Ryan has been involved with all forms of arena football since 1988, including writing for ArenaFan when Joe Kauffman and Tim Capper aren’t killing his columns because they don’t get his jokes or perspective. His day job is at Bethune-Cookman University, which has produced both an NFL Hall of Famer (Larry Little) and an Arena Football Hall of Famer (Stevie Thomas) and his hobby is tracking how many f-bombs Adam Markowitz drops in the chat room on game nights.
