I had an epiphany while running past The Diamond on an oppressively hot Sunday afternoon: there's more to football's rise and baseball's fall than the fact that football is a better sport on TV. Baseball is a summer sport, but football is a fall sport, and that makes all the difference.
If you live in Chicago or Cleveland or Boston and suffer through five hard months of winter, there's nothing like cutting out of work on a weekday in July to watch the boys of summer. The warm sun on your face. Acres of green grass, freshly mown in a checkerboard square pattern. And this month's heat wave notwithstanding, the sun is rarely too strong or the temperature uncomfortably hot in these storied baseball parks. What's a hot day in Chicago anyway? 84?
But in the Sun Belt, no one luxuriates in freshly mown grass in July. That's a recipe for heat stroke. No. You play your 9 or 18 holes in the early morning, and then you hunker down in the comfort of your air conditioned home, blinds drawn. If you must be out at mid-day, you're at the pool or at the beach.
In the South, football season means it's safe to go outdoors again. Honestly, we're as house-bound here in the summer as Laura Ingalls Wilder was in The Long Winter. So I think it's no coincidence that as the nation's population has shifted south the nation's interest in football has also grown.
The wrinkle in my theory is that I, a native southerner, was out running a 10K at 3:00 PM in July. And on The Boulevard at that! The crunch, crunch of broken glass under my running shoes. The smell of stale beer and urine in the faint breeze. But I'm training for a marathon. I'm nuts. The exception that proves the rule.
By the way, you know what the speakers at The Diamond were playing yesterday? Running out, it was Baby It's Cold Outside, and running back it was White Christmas. Yup, exactly five months of shopping days until Christmas! Better beat the crowds now!
On second thought, wait until we're in the middle of the NFL playoffs, and it's not 140 degrees in your car.
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