Sports, but explained a little too simply

Some sports are quintessential childhood ball games; others have rules that are barely known and take years to understand the entire rulebook. However, let’s forget about the specifics for a moment and simplify some popular ball games down to caveman talk—and have a laugh at how absurdly specific talents players of these games have. 

Baseball

Baseball’s basic premise is hitting a ball as hard as you can with a stick and then running around a square as fast as you can. Of course, there must be a person throwing the ball so that the other person can hit it. Over the span of the last one hundred years, humans are now able to throw a ball faster than any land animal can run. Humanity has also sharpened its ability to swing the stick at the ball so hard that it flies over 500 feet.

Basketball

Although the popularity of basketball makes many of its stars celebrities, their skills are quite basic if taken at face level. Basketball consists only of throwing a ball into a net. Although throwing the ball a long distance is much harder than a small distance, an opposing team that usually lurks close to the net makes it harder to throw the ball in from a small distance. As to humans’ abilities, there are specialists who can accurately throw the ball into the net from a long distance away or can jump great heights to get closer to the net. 

Football

As the most watched sport in America, football is simply people attempting to hug each other to stop a ball from reaching an end zone. Heavy people are more effective at tackling people, while fast people can outrun or quickly get to an opponent. People also wear armor while playing this sport, because of the aggressive nature of the hugs. However, football is still one of the most dangerous sports for health, due to the many collisions that occur. The championship is called the Super Bowl and is often watched more than American politics, much to the dismay of non-Americans.

Soccer

Soccer is the most popular international sport, with entire countries’ citizens willing to devolve into hostility if their national teams lose an important soccer game. Despite this, the only goal of soccer (pun not intended) is to kick a ball into an oversized door frame. Soccer players use their feet to maneuver the ball past the opposing team, precisely kicking the ball in complex maneuvers. Expert soccer players are viewed in most countries as national icons, unless they lose, in which case fans will criticize them for weeks, if not until the next tournament.

The strangeness of these games when their rules are simplified is a reminder that people can compete without violence, and the friendly rivalry created by it is a peaceful solution to the instinct of domination.