Opinion: On baseball, bubble gum, Buddy Biancalana

In 1987, Thomas Boswell wrote a column for the Washington Post listing 99 reasons baseball is better than football.

• “Baseball has a bullpen coach blowing bubble gum with his cap turned around backward while leaning on a fungo bat; football has a defensive coordinator in a satin jacket with a headset and a clipboard,” was reason No. 9.

• “Football fans tailgate before the big game. No baseball fan would have a picnic in a parking lot,” was reason No. 53.

• “The baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, N.Y., beside James Fenimore Cooper’s Lake Glimmerglass; the football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, beside the freeway,” was reason No. 63.

Comedian George Carlin’s best routine compared baseball to football, favoring the former if you ask me.

Woody Hayes, Carlin said, “wears a baseball cap at a football game. Can you imagine if Walter Alston wore a football helmet during a baseball game? They would cart him away, man.”

Here are nine other great things that have been said about baseball:

• “I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. ... But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring.” — Annie Savoy, in “Bull Durham”

• There’s no crying in baseball.” — Jimmy Dugan, in “A League of Their Own”

• “If school were more like baseball, we’d only have to play. We’d hang out in the sunshine and run around all day. We wouldn’t have to study. We’d practice and we’d train. And, best of all, they’d cancel whenever there was rain.” — Poet Natalie Bebbington

• “I’d walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.” — Pete Rose

• “All pitchers are liars or crybabies.” — Yogi Berra

• “If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off.” — Team Owner Bill Veeck

• “Baseball is the hat I wear to mow the lawn. Baseball is a simple game of catch and the never-ending search for the perfect knuckleball. Baseball is Willie vs. Mickey, Gibson vs. Koufax, and Buddy Biancalana vs. the odds. Baseball links Kansan and Missourian, American and Japanese, But most of all father and son.” — Poet Greg Hall

• “I never had a job. I always played baseball.” — Satchel Paige

• “It’s a great day for a ball game. Let’s play two!” — Ernie Banks

David Stevens can think of way more than 99 reasons why baseball is better than football. Contact him at: [email protected]