Hockey is a bit of a cultural thing, in part, I think, because it's a sport you really need to see in person, if not play yourself, to appreciate.

It's been said that baseball was the perfect sport for radio, while football is the perfect sport for television, which explains their respective decline and rise. Hockey isn't well suited for either medium, but it's far better in person, and better in person than either baseball or football.

Ah, but if I cared a whole lot about "the beauty of the game & the incredible skill of some of the participants," leavened with a(n) (un)healthy dollop of drama queenishness, I'd watch figure skating or the like.



Pretty much, yeah. The stats are the thing. A "sport" in which they aren't an integral part of the environment, IMHO, is sort of like a comic that lacks characterization or something equally vital. Which is another reason I regard football with such disdain -- most of the fans apparently wouldn't know a given numerical record from a hole in the ground.

With soccer, I'd imagine such considerations wouldn't matter much to a fan base that's infamous for producing droolingly stupid, thuggish hooligan gangswho would have a really hard time counting past their single-digit IQs.

(Football fans -- without doing any research, can you tell me who holds the record for, say, interceptions in a career, & what that record is?)

Yeah, the NFL. My interest in football is pretty much confined to the NCAA, though the fact that Arkansas has had only a handful of really good seasons (most coached by a known reprobate, Bobby Petrino) in the last 25 years or so hasn't helped.

If no one gave a tinkers damn about the NFL, the U.S. would probably be a much better place, though Las Vegas & ESPN would probably need crisis counseling.



No idea, but almost certainly someone from no later than the mid-'40s, which is when the relationship between the minor & major leagues changed drastically & the minors were no longer a career choice.

I'm going to go out on a limb & say that my lack of knowledge of AA records (except, I guess, for those associated with the Arkansas Travelers) is similar to my lack of knowledge of the history of Idaho. I'd like to know more, but there's only so much reading one can do ... unfortunately.



Your point? You're not one of them, but take away "the superhero fanboys" & this place, among others, most certainly would not exist.

I'm guessing Dick Night Train Lane.

The record would be the All-Time Interceptions record leader. Something along those lines.

EDIT: It's Paul Kruase. My mistake. Lane is fourth all time.


Baseball is a great sport to play, but no so great to watch in my opinion. It can be a little too slow for me. And I don't like the fact that there are so many games and the prospect of going undefeated is impossible. Which is why football is my favorite sport. It's one of the few sports that has a good balance between strategy (constant start and stop), and a physical element to it. The folks on the gridiron aren't trying to be "nice" and "civil". Everyone is out there trying to implement their will on someone else in the most rudimentary way. And a lot of the guys out there actually look the part of a superhero.

Should've specified -- by "what that record is" I meant what the record number is.

Couldn't swear to it, but memory tells me that Lane held the record when I was a kid. I remember when Krause was playing for the Vikings (assuming he's who I think he is), so evidently he's held the record for around 4 decades, which is pretty impressive in a league that's experienced shameful schedule expansion in that time.

(The NFL played 12 games a season till the 1961 season, at which time I guess the older league decided to match the AFL's length of schedule by expanding to 14 games ... & now of course it's 16, which would soon increase to 18 if the powers that be were to get their way. If, say, MLB had done the same, what was once a 154-game season would now stand at 205 games [or 231 to match the equivalent of an NFL 18-game season], with consquent dilution of all counting-stat accomplishments.)

(Sorry for the mean ol' numbers, Slam. I guess I just can't help it.)

Dan's comments about being more into stats than the games themselves draws a parallel for me with role-playing games. I've always been fascinated by them, but I've never had a strong desire to play them; I just can't see myself sitting at a table and getting into character as my 18th level half-orc barbarian/bard/divine-ale specialist. I'm particularly fond of the old 80's Marvel and DC RPG's, and taught myself the system simply so I could write up more accurate stats for the characters (nerd alert!). It's possible I might play online some day (they have free browser base virtual table-tops nowadays) but it's unlikely...