A column by Kevin Hench of Fox Sports said football has replaced baseball as the national pastime, and this is why. There are good arguments for both sides of this debate, and although I am a huge football fan, my vote for national pastime still lies with baseball.

Hench made several good points. His first was most games happen on Sunday, so this one day is a huge event. The week to come revolves around this one day. True, since baseball takes place seven days a week. Hench ¢ one, me ¢ zero.

Hench said every game matters in football, and he is right. In a 16-game season, you are playing for the post-season because every game in the playoffs is a single-elimination. But the problem with that is although a single loss ends your season and can be dramatic, the playoffs as a whole aren¡t as dramatic as they are in baseball.

Look at last season¡s ALCS between the Yankees and the Red Sox. The eventual World Series champs came back from three games down to win the next four. If that isn¡t dramatic enough for you, then I don¡t know what is. So what if they beat the Cards in four straight games? Hench ¢ one, me ¢ one.

Fantasy baseball versus fantasy football. Definitely baseball. Football only accumulates statistics from one day of games, where baseball stats take a whole week to collect, depending on the style of scoring you select. One huge game by several people on your fantasy roster can propel you ahead of your opponent for the week. With football, one game determines your winning or losing for the week. Hench ¢ one, me ¢ two.

Tailgating. If you are a beer-drinking, red meat-eating, glad-to-be-sitting-outside-in-the-middle-of-winter kind of person, like myself, then you can¡t argue with this. But baseball isn¡t the type of sport you can tailgate at; it just doesn¡t happen. Push.

Coaching is fairly simple in baseball, this is true, and football takes some skill, but you can¡t tell me that the coach has much effect on either sport. It¡s up to the players on the field. Hench ¢ one, me ¢ three.

Hench¡s last reason football has supplanted baseball as the national pastime was nationalism. He says most of baseball is dominated by players from a different country. True, but why should that take away from being our national pastime? Is he biased toward Americans when it comes to sports? Should foreign people with athletic talent looking for a better life be turned away from the sport they love simply because they aren¡t born American? Hell, no.

I agreed with Hench on weather, athleticism and salary cap, but after tallying up the scores, it appears I still beat Hench four to three with two pushes.

James Earl Jones said it best in Field of Dreams:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it¡s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.Œ