George Carlin
Baseball, Football, and How We Have Changed
Baseball is a 19th century pastoral game.
Football is a 20th century new world order paramilitary power struggle.
Baseball is played in a park…the baseball park.
Football is played in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
The baseball field is…a diamond.
The football field is a gridiron.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.
In football, you wear a helmet.
In baseball, you wear a cap!
Football is concerned with downs. What down is it? Oh, it's the last down.
Baseball is concerned with ups. Who's up? Are you up? He's up! I'm up!!
In football, you get a penalty.
In baseball, you make an error…oops!
In football, the specialist comes on to kick something.
In baseball, the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
Football has tackling, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls,
late hitting, sacking, and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has … the sacrifice.
Football is played in any kind of weather--rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog,
major catastrophe, can't see, don't know if there's a game going on,
mud on the field, can't read the uniforms,
can't read the yard markers--doesn't matter, the struggle will continue.
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.
I can't go out, it's raining out!!
Baseball has the s-e-v-e-n-t-h i-n-n-i-n-g s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
Football has the TwoMinuteWaring!
And, of course, the objectives of the games are also completely different.
In football, the object is for the quarterback,
sometimes called the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault,
riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of
the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun.
With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches into enemy territory,
balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack which may consist
of power plays designed to punch holes in the forward wall of the enemy's
defensive line.
In baseball, the object is to get home … safe.