Baseball's record on race relations is poor. But football's is much worse. Baseball has a drug problem comparable to society's. Pro football has a range of substance-abuse problems comparable only to itself. And, perhaps, the Hell's Angels'.
Baseball enriches language and imagination at almost every point of contact.
Without baseball, there'd have been no Fenway Park. Without football, there'd have been no artificial turf. A typical football game has about 5 touchdowns, a couple of field goals and fewer than 150 plays spread over 3 hours. Of those plays, perhaps 20 or 25 percent result in a gain or loss of more that 10 yards. Baseball has more scoring plays, more serious scoring threats and more meaningful action plays.