by Dave Cupples

Created on: April 23, 2009

Ask people, between baseball and golf, which is the slowest sport, and many of them will yawn and ask a question of their own: Who cares? The answer to both questions depends on how much of a fan you are-of either game. The chemist who invented Rustoleum probably gets a thrill watching paint dry. Any sport is going to be more exciting if you have some emotional investment in the game, and even a fast-paced, end to end game like basketball can seem slow and boring if you do not. The more you know about the game you are watching, and the more you care about the adversaries and the outcome, the more likely you are to find excitement. So everybody will have their own personal and equally valid opinion on the question, but MY opinion is that golf is by far the slowest.

Strategy adds interest to both games, but in golf, even diehard fans can miss the important details that make the difference. The strategy in golf depends largely on the terrain, the lie of the ball, and the distance to the hole; but those particulars are hard to distinguish, even if you are at the tournament. The golfers, themselves, have to ask their caddies about the locations and specific distances to sand traps, water, and other hazards. Much of the excitement is muted while you wait to see if the golfer hits into one of them or manages to land safely in the short grass. It's also difficult to see if the ball is above or below the golfer's feet or buried in the sand or rough; and no matter where you position yourself, most of the time you can only watch one group of players and one hole at a time. With at least thirty-six groups and eighteen holes all in play at the same time, you're going to miss a lot. Television does a good job of giving better looks and following the different groups from hole to hole, but it can't capture all the action, either.

In baseball on the other hand, all fields share the same basic layout, and only one ball is used at a time. It is possible to see all the action and all the strategic details. When a batter hits a ball, you know where it's going-right, center or left; grounded, lined or popped up-and if you understand baseball, you can follow the excitement from the moment the bat hits the ball. You don't have to wait to see if the ball is going into the lake or the sand or slicing into the trees, and you don't have to wait for the announcer to tell you that the slope of the green is going to make that putt extremely difficult. And if you want to know how any single

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