The high school baseball and softball playoffs have reached the regional stage for the playoffs. So far each team has played four games just to get to this point. The regional format is a two out of three games so the minimum amount of games to make it to the state finals is six games and just maybe seven.
The state championship weekend is also a two out of three which can throw the total number of games to ten to win a state title. This is too many games for pitchers. Any team that has two really good pitchers is blessed but most don't. You know what happens, those team with only one great pitcher pitches him to death during the playoffs. It takes four weeks of baseball playoffs playing two games a week and the season started the first of March so the season is only ten weeks and most of that was played in cold weather.
This country's number one sport is football. It dominates TV but the future is not all of that rosey for football. Injuries are a major concern and being the way insurance is in this country it is only a matter of time parents are not going to keep letting their children play football.
The next major sports in America is soccer. Some think soccer was first played about 400 AD and more than 200 countries play it as their top sport today. This country because of the popularity of American football is only in the last 30 years rising in people playing. Back in the 60's TV tried American professional soccer but TV used fake injuries to get tie outs to put in commercials and it failed. If it fails TV no sport has a chance. The World Cup coverage and the USA being underdogs convinced TV that people would watch soccer in America.
The next biggest sport on the rise in America is Lacrosse. North Carolina now has enough schools playing Lacrosse to hold state championships last weekend. The first recorded form of Lacrosse was around 1110 AD. Most native Americans were playing some form of Lacrosse when the first Spanish, English and French settlers arrived.
Why then if Lacrosse is the first sport of the new America why is it just now growing? All those networks of ESPN needed programming. College Lacrosse is not only exciting but the game is compacted into a two hour TV show which is perfect for TV.
Both soccer and Lacrosse have less severe injuries which is better on players, parents and insurance. It may not happen in the next thirty years but in the near future you will see six hours of pregame coverage of the World Cup or Lacrosse finals and football will be a sport like rugby. Who in the world plays that sport?
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