American sports are another thing that distinguishes America from the rest of the world.
On the face of it, American sports have little in common with each other. For instance consider the contrast between the somewhat ad hoc baseball and the highly regimented American football. American football is played on a grid precisely 100 yards by 50 yards, baseball is played in a park. American football is played over 4 quarters of 15 minutes. Baseball is played for as many innings as it takes to win (although for no less than 9), and each innings takes as long as it takes. However, the reality is that American sports are distinctly American.
The big four American sports are "football", baseball, basketball, and [ice] hockey. Notably these sports are at best minority sports in the rest of the world.
First off, and my pet peeve, they don’t call football, football. Look, don't get me started.
Too Late
It's the world’s most popular game. It has 192 countries officially members of FIFA – a bigger membership list than the United Nations. It is universally known as football, futbol, la football etc., except in America where they call it soccer. The word football is reserved for a game in which the ball, is picked up, thrown, carried, but almost never kicked.
I’ve heard it said that to understand the mind of the American, you need to understand baseball/American football* (delete which ever is inapplicable). However my impression is that Americans are a lot easier to understand than their sports. This isn’t because Americans are simple – far from it. It is because, in particular, American Football is ridiculously complicated. After much effort I’ve got the basics sorted, but every time I watch a game I find new rules, or unexplainable phenomenon. And that is just on the pitch: off the pitch there is the mind blowingly complex concept of the NFL draft. Normally, at such a point as this, an author would explain such a concept, in order to allow the reader to judge for themselves the level of complexity involved. Unfortunately, the whole concept is beyond me.
So maybe that is the point. American sports are complicated and so is the mind of the typical American. There is simply no great love for simplicity. The penchant Americans have for inventing long words is indicative of a general preference for complexity over simplicity that is reflected in other recreational pursuits.
Another oddity that is common across the American sports is an apparent distaste for a draw. In baseball if the scores are tied after the standard 9 innings, they have annother innings, and as many more as are necessary to ensure the end result isn't a draw. Similar rules effectively outlaw draws in the other sports as well. While, I, as a born and bred Brit, always regarded a draw as a mutually honourable outcome that allows both sides to leave the field of play with a measure of self respect, Americans regard a draw as boring.
But if any one single point unites American sports then it must be the love of organisation, strategies and tactics. American sports seemed designed to allow for the greater application of tactics. Enough so to mean that simply being the most skilled team counts for little unless that team is also as well co-ordinated and drilled as the opposition. So for instance, basketball, American football, and ice hockey allow almost unlimited numbers of substitutions. Thus, coaches can adjust strategies throughout the game by altering the formation and balance of a team, according to even the slightest change. However the concept of tactical planning is at its most extreme in American football. Coaches drill their players more thoroughly than soldiers, plan their games with more attention than a war cabinet, and creating more contingencies than a corporate marketing strategy. It certainly provides more to talk about in the post game analysis. But is it sport?