My coworker holds the opinion that baseball is not a sport. He calls it a game. According to him, any activity where overweight, unfit people can be superstars (i.e. Babe Ruth), or where people can play back-to-back games without breaking a sweat (i.e. doubleheaders), does not qualify to be called a sport. I found this an interesting point of view, as baseball is one of America’s most traditional and favorite pastime “sports,” and if you ask any average person on the street if they consider baseball a sport, they’d probably say, “of course!” On the other hand, if you asked about, say, golf for example, you’d probably get more people agreeing that it’s more of a game than a sport.

So I decided to look up the number of calories burned playing baseball compared to playing golf. The numbers vary slightly depending on your source of information, but overall all sources I’ve seen agree that golf burns more calories per hour than baseball. As for skill involved, it’s easy to argue that golf requires as much skill as, if not more than, baseball. So, no offense to any baseball players out there, but even though I enjoy watching Chien Ming Wang pitch for the Yankees, I have to agree with my coworker: baseball is not a sport, it’s a game.