Baseball games get delayed/postponed due to rain fairly often. In my experience, football games rarely get cancelled due to inclement weather. It seems snow would be harder on the players than rain. Why the different treatment?
Because baseball has traditionally always stopped play during rain or snow (or cold, for that matter). It’s apparently done to prevent injury and prevent damage to the field, and because the ball becomes slippery in the rain.
Football, OTOH, traditionally doesn’t stop or cancel games for anything short of extreme/severe weather (I’ve seen several football games temporarily suspended due to severe thunderstorms, including the Hall of Fame game the other night). Though, arguably, the reasons why baseball doesn’t play in inclement weather could be applied to football, too – except that those reasons never has been applied to football, and a lot of foul-weather football games have become some of the sport’s signature moments.
Just a matter of tradition, I suppose.
Safety reasons. Trying to play baseball in rain increases the risk of injury; if the batters can’t see the baseball being pitched to the plate, there is a serious problem.
that and it’s a “manly” thing in football … you can’t be a wuss and complain about the cold in football
The bases get very slippery, too. I vividly remember (back when he played for the Nats) Bryce Harper injuring his ankle pretty badly tripping over first base because it hadn’t been properly dried after a rain delay.
because NFL has short 17 game season with little flexibility, whereas MLB is a long 162 games, so easier to make up games with doubleheaders
Football plays from August through February. If they had to reschedule when the conditions weren’t perfect, a full season would never get played. But if you watch one single game of football being played in the elements, you’ll realize why they still play in the elements.
If you watch a game of baseball, you’ll notice they the pitchers take incredibly great care as to the dryness and tackiness of their pitching hands. That’s because when you throw a ball 100 MPH, it’s REALLY important to know exactly where it’s going so as to not give the batter a concussion (or worse).
A baseball pitcher trying to pitch on a muddy mound and slipping could also cause a severe injury. This, of course, is a concern playing on a wet football field; this is not as a big a deal as it once was, though, given the great care that natural turf fields receive in today’s NFL (that and the fact that so many teams play indoors, use fieldturf, etc.)
This is the correct answer, by far.
It’d be very hard to reschedule a football game – location, staffing, team fatigue, etc. all make it hard.
I remember seeing the grounds crew coming in to the stadium soon after a football game was over, to re-arrange the stadium for another sport or different event scheduled the next day.
And football seems a more tiring sport than baseball. Having players play again, or change their playing date, would be hard on their bodies. (That’s one of the complaints about Thursday night games.)
And many of the attendees travel distances, and plan overnight stays for a game. They might not be able to do that for a rescheduled game, especially if not on a weekend.
There are just a lot of technical reasons why it’s a lot harder to di in Football.
If you get hit in the head enough times, eventually you forget to come in when it rains.
It’s not tiring, it’s extremely violent and painful. Injuries are pretty much guaranteed so recovery time is critical.
best example to me was that Bears game where the fog was so bad you couldn’t see one foot in front of you, but they continued playing