[greymule]

With that said, baseball is a very, very simple game as far as strategy goes when you really get down to it.

Can't agree there. Fielders, for example, have to consider many factors in deciding where to position themselves, how to move, where and how hard to throw, what the contingencies are and how they change as a play unfolds. The announcers don't mention a lot of this, but if you've played infield at some reasonably high level, then you know what I'm talking about.

Further, the fact that some pitchers with less "stuff" than others can end up in the Hall of Fame is attributable largely to strategy and psychology. High school pitchers throw harder than Bobby Shantz, Stu Miller, and Harvey Haddix, yet those small guys were great. (I met Shantz years ago. He looked like a jockey.) There a whole lot more going on than appears to the casual observer. I'm reminded of when I was watching a World Cup soccer game on TV in the presence of a bunch of guys from Guatemala. They would suddenly get excited when it appeared to me that absolutely nothing was happening.

All sports have their intricacies. But some sports are "understandable" to an enjoyable degree even for people who don't know much. I know only the basics of football, and learning all the rules about who can block whom when and where wouldn't enhance my enjoyment of the game. I do appreciate it, though, when a couple of friends—one who played in the NFL briefly, another who coaches in college—point out important elements I'd never have noticed on my own.

The players are definitely bigger and faster than they were 40-50 years ago, so I would bet the players from past decades would have a harder time with football now than the baseball players would.

Pro linemen are almost all over 300 pounds today, aren't they? What did they average in the 1970s—275? In the 1950s—225? Remember Sherman Plunkett, whose 300+ pounds made him unusual?

One of my former schoolteachers played center for Princeton in the (Heisman trophy winner) Dick Kasmaier days. I think Princeton was undefeated and ranked in the Top Ten one of those years. This guy was tough and determined, but he was about 5'5" and couldn't have weighed 150 pounds. In 1966, when the former football captain of that school tried out for his college team (a good football school in the south), the coach said that he was the best football player he had ever seen, pound for pound. Trouble was, at 157, there just weren't enough pounds. (Today the guy is a billionaire, so don't feel too sorry for him.)