A look at the top four sports and the people obsessed with them
As careful readers of AQL know, I am afflicted with the bother of sports fanhood, and of the American variant to boot, which may be the worst because of the many leagues. At this very moment, my beloved Phillies of Major League Baseball are expertly rattling my nerves — even as my equally beloved Eagles of the National Football League are about to recommence the same, hoping to repeat last year’s Super Bowl championship. It can seem, at times, that I hope for this more than they do. And it is absurd, of course, that I should even give a toss.
In my effort to understand myself, and to make something useful of the misfortune, I’ve reflected about how our personalities determine which sports (if any) we like. Complexity? Tradition? The frustration we’re willing to endure? We want our team to win, but we also sit through hours, days and years of not winning — mostly not even scoring (with one silly exception, as we shall see).
In baseball, even a dominant team will lose a third of its games each season (the Phillies, currently in first place in their division, have lost 43% of them). In 2022, the Dodgers won an incredible 111 of the 162 regular season games … and still lost in the first round of the playoffs. A great hitter fails 70% of the time. Loving baseball requires an unusually high tolerance for disappointment. It rewards the fan who is comfortable with failure, who appreciates complexity, who is willing to accept league parity as a good thing for the common good. The liberal intellectual, in short. There’s a stoicism to it, as if the losses, like rainy days, are just part of the season.
American football is a different beast. It’s fast, punishing, and loud. The stakes are compressed: only 17 games in a regular NFL season, each meaning so much that every Sunday carries existential weight. If you lose four games, you’re on the edge of playoff elimination. A single turnover (losing control of the ball while on offense) can ruin an entire week. In 2007, the New England (read: Boston) Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season — and still lost the Super Bowl to the Giants, who had barely squeaked into the playoffs at 10-6. Football offers a dream of control, of strength rewarded and weakness exposed. It draws people who want to believe that plans, discipline, and power matter most.
Basketball, meanwhile, is hyperactive relentless motion. Everyone scores. No lead is safe. The best team usually wins — eventually. There’s comfort in that for some, tedium for others. A team might be ahead 120-102 with three minutes left, and lose. The 73-win Golden State Warriors lost just nine games in the 2015–16 regular season — but still fell in the Finals to LeBron James and the Cavaliers, who simply peaked at the right time. The sheer volume of scoring flattens the drama. Each bucket matters, but none matter enough to carry meaning alone. If you ask me, it’s a bore.
And then there’s soccer: the most global of sports, and also the most static. Teams run for 90 minutes, often to a 0-0 draw. One mistake, one flash of brilliance, or one bad refereeing decision can decides everything. In 2022, Saudi Arabia beat Argentina — who went on to win the World Cup. Players run out the clock pretending to be hurt — and you can never be sure the refs give it back in extra time. The Israeli philosopher Yishayahu Leibovich called soccer something like this: “Eleven idiots, running around, trying to kick a ball.” Trying! You gotta love philosophers. Soccer draws a different kind of soul — someone who is willing to be disappointed constantly, and yet still hold out hope for beauty. It’s the sport of considerable tension, and constant hope deferred.
When you look at it this way, the sport you love might say less about your region or upbringing — and more about how you handle time, failure, control, and chaos. Let us examine, and see where you, dear reader, may come down on this.
Baseball is the sport most aligned with the tempo of life. It’s slow, most of the time — but things build quietly and then shift suddenly. The margins between success and failure are tiny — a ground ball that’s one inch to the left, a pitch that just misses the zone. A potential home run that just hooks foul. A player thrown out by an inch at the plate (non-Americans, just trust me on these things).
It’s not for the impatient or for those who need frequent validation. It’s a game of patience, of pattern recognition, of showing up every day knowing much of it will not go your way. You learn to find meaning in the subtle and small triumphs.
Fans of baseball are often the kind of people who don’t need every moment to be thrilling. They can sit with ambiguity. They understand that greatness is cumulative. It’s no surprise that sabermetrics — obsessive statistical analysis — was born in baseball. The sport attracts analysts, purists, lovers of the long game.
Here is what baseball player statistics actually look like:
Yes, it is madness. But it’s also pretty simple when a player hits a “grand slam,” meaning that he knocks the ball all the way out of the field of play with players on all three bases (each one having succeeded in reaching the base somehow), scoring four “runs.” It is hard to explain the elation of watching you team do this.
Sadly, the evildoers on the other team can achieve the same with infuriating ease, and who manages it seems to be a flip of the coin. Even the structure of the postseason reflects all of this. A 162-game marathon leads to a short best-of-five or best-of-seven playoff — where randomness reasserts itself. In 2023, the 104-win Braves and 100-win Orioles were bounced early. The World Series was won by the 90-win Texas Rangers. The lesson? Life is unfair. But if you love the game, you stay in it anyway.
So basically: If you love baseball, you understand that life is mostly failure and repetition, with occasional moments of clarity.
Football is about control — and punishment. It is also angry and loud and brash. It is the opposite of baseball. The field is measured, segmented. Every movement is planned. Each player has a role. Coaches script the plays like choreography. The violence is part of the ritual, but it’s also contained. It’s the most hierarchical of the sports: quarterbacks and coaches are generals; linemen are foot soldiers.
Here are some examples of what a quarterback, who is more than anyone the controller of the ball and the brains of the team, can do, using my own Jalen Hurts as the example:
Fans of football tend to admire discipline, systems, and domination. It’s a game where being stronger and better prepared matters — until, of course, it doesn’t. One injury, one turnover, one busted coverage, and the whole thing might collapse. The sport reflects the belief that life is winnable — with the right plan, the right people, and the right execution. It’s no wonder that the Super Bowl is America’s secular high holiday.
When Tom Brady came back from 28–3 in 2017, it was a triumph of persistence and precision. It showed genius cannot be denied. In baseball, alas, it can. So if you love football, you believe in control, in discipline, in systems that (ideally) reward both planning and strength.
Basketball is non-stop. You score, and then they score. The game loops endlessly until someone runs out of gas. It’s fluid, improvisational, rhythmic. One player — if they’re good enough — can bend the entire game around their will by scoring all the time. Fans of basketball often believe in effort, momentum, and talent. It’s the sport of confidence and clutch performances. But paradoxically, that’s also what can make it boring to watch. Everything matters, which can also mean that nothing matters. The real action only begins in the final minutes.
And yet basketball is the most reliably meritocratic of the major sports. In a seven-game series, the better team almost always wins. There are fewer players on the court, less room for flukes. That’s why the NBA playoffs rarely deliver true Cinderella stories. The whole setup is a vexation. Or not, depending on your type.
In a way, basketball is the most modern of the sports — fast-paced, star-driven, analytics-heavy. But it also reflects the anxiety of contemporary life: you’re always doing something, and rarely sure if any of it will matter. I find it exhausting and pointless. I have been to countless games; I never feel uplifted, but I certainly have been happy when my team has won. There is a vulgar joy in that.
If you love basketball, you trust in hustle, talent, gracefulness and momentum. And you are drawn to instant and constant gratification.
Soccer is the most human of all sports — in its flaws, its passions, and its cruelty. It is the only global game where the superior team can lose without having done much wrong. A moment of brilliance or a fluke bounce can undo 89 minutes of control. The margins are brutal. Fans of soccer believe in beauty — but it’s a game where effort is rarely rewarded. Most efforts are utterly futile. Once in a million years you get an effort like this:
Still, the world obsesses. And to add extra spice, soccer has, more than any other sport, become an extension of geopolitics via the national teams. Entire countries can be cast into depression by failures of these squads. In the 2014 World Cup semifinal, Brazil — the hosts, the romantics, the five-time champions — lost 7–1 to Germany, sparking a national trauma. In 2022, France came back from 2-0 down in the final to level the score — only to lose on penalties. Just when you think you’ve made it, the soccer gods change their minds.
And perhaps most frustrating of all: In an age of parity, in this as in all sports, it comes down to some mechanism for determining the winner. In soccer, that is the penalty shootout. Basically, it’s random. The goalie will dive right or left; the kicker will kick left or right.
And yet fans keep watching, because when everything aligns, it feels like a miracle. In a way, that is the most accurate metaphor for life. Maybe there’s a reason that soccer is so popular. Its partisans can accept that meaning and success are rare — and all the more precious for it.
Careful readers will observe that I have left out boxing, wrestling and all its variants, and tennis (on account of my focus on team sports) — and very definitely ping pong and billiards (because even I can play them well, which makes it seem unserious). Also ignored is ice hockey (because the puck is too small, and as punishment for the NHL’s tolerance of fights). Lastly, despite being an self-professed anglophile I also eliminated cricket and rugby, on account of being lesser draft versions of baseball and football. I say all this with all due respect.
As for the remaining four, maybe the one you love most is just the one you grew up with. In my case, a traumatic event at age nine connected me forever to the NFL’s Eagles (read the shocking story here). But then I ended up loving baseball equally, which seems a contradiction. Since I refuse to see a therapist, I took the question to ChatGPT, in the spirit of our times. Here’s what it said:
You’re drawn to two contrasting philosophies. Baseball, with its slow pace and constant disappointment, demands patience and an acceptance of failure. Football, on the other hand, is about control, discipline, and the thrilling rush of power and precision. It rewards strength and strategy, yet reminds us that one mistake can bring it all crashing down. In enjoying both, you embrace a mix of stoic patience and a belief in the power of planning.
I asked: “And how does this connect to politics?”
Well, the duality of enjoying both baseball and football mirrors your political outlook. Baseball’s slow, methodical nature, where you learn to accept failure and find meaning in long-term progress, reflects a belief in incremental change, persistence, and a stoic approach to setbacks—a value often seen in more cautious, liberal political thought.
On the other hand, football’s fast-paced, high-stakes environment, where every move matters and one mistake can cost it all, reflects your drive for decisive action, the importance of strategy, and your recognition of the urgent need for bold reforms—like those in the Israeli context, where structural change is essential to meet the challenges of today. It suggests a belief that political power, like football, can be wielded strategically and must be prepared for moments of crisis.
“What work should such a person do?” I inquired.
A person with this blend of patience, strategic thinking, and willingness to take decisive action would thrive in a career that demands both long-term vision and the ability to act swiftly in moments of crisis. Here are the main career paths that align well with these qualities:
Political Strategist or Policy Advisor: This person would be well-suited to a role where they can influence long-term policy while understanding when to make bold, impactful decisions. Their ability to balance the gradual progress of a cause with the urgency of political crises would make them a strong asset in shaping national or international policies.
Journalist or Political Commentator: In the media, this individual could offer nuanced, long-term political analysis while also recognizing the moments when immediate, impactful action is needed. They would be able to analyze events in context, providing in-depth reporting while also understanding the importance of breaking news.
It was at this point that I began to wonder whose intelligence, exactly, was the more artificial.