Informal: Hockey is "better" than baseball.

I would like to throw out some figures to help shape my approach to the debate. First off, the comparison of the two games a they pertain to their schedules and times to each other. A baseball season is 162 games long, which means that the importance of each game is only .61% to the season total. In other words, if you lose a baseball game, it does not affect the outcome as a whole as much as hockey. There are 82 games in a season of hockey, which means each game is worth 1.12% (almost double) of the season and would thus lead each game of hockey to hold twice the importance of a baseball game in typical regular season circumstances. With more importance of the game to the season usually brings more emotional value for the spectator. Another point to be made about the spectator aspect of the sport is the amount of action that each viewer gets to watch compared to the time they get to invest in each game. A baseball game has no time limit, so basically the monotonous past time could theoretically take forever, but for the purposes of this debate I will say that the average game of baseball is around 3 hours. (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) The average time of action for "ball in play" is 12 minutes (. http://ask.yahoo.com...) which puts the action per game at 6.66%. To put that in perspective, that means for 93% of the game, there is no baseball actually being played. This time is taken up by commercials, throwing the ball back to the pitcher, spitting, and re-adjusting cups. Hockey generally takes 2.5 hours to watch and contains 60 minutes of action (3 periods of 20 minutes). This is a game of 40% action, and when compared to baseball has far less interruptions and far more action for the viewer. With more time of action for hockey, it means that the time invested by the viewer for each game yields more action and thus more potential for excitement. Now lets move to the athletics of each sport. A baseball and a hockey puck weigh the same (5 oz) and generally reach the same mph during game play (between 70 and 105 mph). As far as the physical aspects oh the game, hockey definitely outweighs the power needed on both offense and defense. Hockey entails skating, checking, fighting, taking checks, deking and playing defense, all while you are on your shift. While you are on your shift, you have to be able to play both offense and defense within seconds of each other, and also play as a team on both offense and defense. In baseball, you take breaks between each offense and defense switch, meaning you have time to mentally prepare and adjust and so on. While you are on offense in baseball, you are no longer a part of a team, you basically just a hitter or a runner. (I won't get into pinch hitting or running because I feel it is just absurd in the first place to have someone of better skill take over for you in a pinch. ) As a runner you generally only have to run between 90 and 270 ft at a time. As a hitter you have to hit a ball traveling between 70-105 mph with a bat. Some people say it is the hardest thing to do in sports, but if that is true why are there so many hits? On defense in baseball, you are expected to throw the baseball between 90 and 270 ft once in a while when the ball it hit to you. Other than that it is catching the ball and fielding the ball in typically undemanding circumstances. Now to really show the difficulty of each sport for the athlete, I will show the scoring numbers in each sport. In hockey, the save percentage for goalies is on average .90. This means that the goalie will save 90% of all the teams shots, and for an individual it is much harder do be in that 10% when you share the ice with 4 other guys. In baseball, a non pitcher averages between .25 and .30 batting average. This means that an individual on offense in hockey has a harder time scoring and being in a scoring position than a baseball player. That is the bulk of my argument but I would also like to add a few extra points that can be supplementary evidence for my reasoning. Baseball takes 8 breaks between innings where hockey only takes 2 breaks between periods. Ice is a much harder surface to play on. Hockey requires more padding than baseball because it is more physical. The coaches/managers of hockey actually wear respectable clothing in hockey, not the players uniform. Hockey is played indoors so there are rarely if any cancelled games per season and there are no rain delays or rain outs like in baseball. Lastly, any "sport" that can be played more than once in a day (back to back double headers in baseball) isn't really that demanding of a sport anyway. Plus baseball players get paid way too much for what they offer athletically and steroids just doesn't really help their reputation anyway. So basically, it is harder to score in hockey, it is more physically demanding of its athletes, spectators get more bang for their buck and each game is worth more in the season total which makes for each game more important. If you look at the amount of minutes of action each sport offers per season, baseball averages 1,944 minutes where as hockey offers 4,920 and baseball takes up 5 months of playing every day where hockey is a concentrated action packed sport of athletics and strategy. That is all I have for now and I am looking forward to my opponents response.