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Jonzard · 06-17-2009, 03:33 PM

NFL records mean basically nothing compared to baseball stats. I think that is the biggest part. People love the cross-era comparisons, even though the foundation of that is flawed (Babe Ruth/pre-integration).

Furthermore, baseball players are the most "normal" athletes. For the most part, they are just regular looking people so we group them as an "in group." Most players aren't 6-10 or 350lbs like the NFL or NBA. NFL players are already physical freaks and are grouped as an "other group." A linebacker is already sort of a super-human so we don't emotionally get invested in their purity. When baseball players take steroids we see it as a betrayal of that connection.

In baseball, there are even examples of almost sub-average types of athletes who take that "in grouping" to the extreme. Guys like Eckstein or Kirby Puckett are often lionized due to the connection we feel to them as regular Joes playing amongst guys much more naturally gifted. It is really just illusory as they are also just as naturally talented in what they do as a that linebacker is in what he does.

In football there are guys who might be small or something but they still have physical gifts that we view as much more super-human than a guy swinging a bat or throwing a ball. People don't see Barry Sanders in the same way they see Kirby Puckett. Barry was still viewed as a physical freak compared to the everyman.

06-17-2009, 03:33 PM	#15
Jonzard Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Minnesota Posts: 3,647	NFL records mean basically nothing compared to baseball stats. I think that is the biggest part. People love the cross-era comparisons, even though the foundation of that is flawed (Babe Ruth/pre-integration). Furthermore, baseball players are the most "normal" athletes. For the most part, they are just regular looking people so we group them as an "in group." Most players aren't 6-10 or 350lbs like the NFL or NBA. NFL players are already physical freaks and are grouped as an "other group." A linebacker is already sort of a super-human so we don't emotionally get invested in their purity. When baseball players take steroids we see it as a betrayal of that connection. In baseball, there are even examples of almost sub-average types of athletes who take that "in grouping" to the extreme. Guys like Eckstein or Kirby Puckett are often lionized due to the connection we feel to them as regular Joes playing amongst guys much more naturally gifted. It is really just illusory as they are also just as naturally talented in what they do as a that linebacker is in what he does. In football there are guys who might be small or something but they still have physical gifts that we view as much more super-human than a guy swinging a bat or throwing a ball. People don't see Barry Sanders in the same way they see Kirby Puckett. Barry was still viewed as a physical freak compared to the everyman. __________________ For a scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very precisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of bookkeeping. — Sir Peter B. Medawar FTB Last edited by Jonzard; 06-17-2009 at 05:15 PM.