Baseball is a statistician's dream. There is a stat for everything. Every time a player comes up to bat to a pitcher, we know the probability he will get a hit or a walk or a strikeout, hit it in the air or on the ground, which direction he will hit it in, how many bases he may get... The great thing is that all this data now goes into actual recruitment of players and it's not just for nerds. Guys get paid millions for having a good BABIP.

Baseball is not as exciting as football or basketball. It is not nonstop action. There are down times. Hell, there will be at least 17 stoppages of play in every game. And sometimes nothing happens (but that's still interesting since a 'pitcher's duel' means a close game where one play could win it). It's also a long season and not every game matters as much as it does in football or in tournaments like the World Cup or March Madness. But that's the beauty of the sport. The long season means the stats are actually statistically significant and can be used to make projections. And generally, fluke teams don't win.

Baseball is all about the duel between the pitcher and the batter. Only in boxing is there a more strategic pairing of two athletes. It's about anticipation. The batter needs to anticipate which pitch he is going to get and where he's going to hit it. The pitcher needs to fool the batter into thinking a good pitch is not worth swinging at or a bad pitch is. It's so cerebral, and that is hard to get across on TV, but it is the bread and butter of baseball.

Baseball is my favorite sport. Go A's!