The Numbers Game

The New York Yankees beat The Toronto Blue Jays 16-3 recently. It caught my eye because it didn't sound like the score of a baseball game. Every sport has a different scoring system, and some are better than others.

Baseball is simple. A player can only score one point at a time. Football is more complicated. A player can score six points with a touchdown, three points with a field goal, two points with a safety or one point.

It makes the game interesting.

The two worst games for scoring are soccer and ice hockey because they don't score enough. Soccer players run up and down the field for 90 minutes and at the end of the game the score is 1-0.

Same with hockey. It's frustrating to watch on television. The puck is always going to someone who wasn't supposed to get it. If the right guy does get it, he shoots and usually misses the net - or the goalie gets in the way.

There's too much scoring in basketball. The team with the ball usually scores. The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Lakers 128-120. You need an adding machine.

Women's basketball is interesting because they pass more. Most of the girls aren't tall enough to reach up and drop the ball in the basket, the way the seven-foot freaks do.

There ought to be a basketball league for men under six feet.

The dumbest scoring for a good game is tennis. When the first player wins a point, the score is called 15-love.

Why 15? And what's love all about? In tennis, love means nothing.

I don't know why it is, but tennis wouldn't be nearly as much fun without that crazy scoring system.

Major league baseball is having trouble attracting fans and maybe they ought to change their scoring system.

Players get one run when they cross home plate. It might be more interesting if a player got one point every time he reached a base. If he got to first on a hit, he'd get one point. Second base, two points. A home run would be four points.

The team that crossed home plate the most number of times wouldn't always win. If one team got three men to third base, it would get nine points. If the other team got two home runs, it would only get eight points and lose.

And there's one more way baseball could get more people into the stands. The price of a hot dog at Yankee Stadium is $3.75. As far as I'm concerned, a better way for baseball to get more people into the stadium would be to cut the price of a hot dog in half.