Games and Sports

I don't know why this bugs me, but it does. It just irritates me when people call baseball a sport. Not just baseball, but lots of other competitive activities like NASCAR, shooting, throwing darts...Not sports, people. Not. These are games. Football, rugby, basketball--these are sports.

Let's start with definitions. Yes, I know the dictionary definitions of sport and game. I've looked 'em up in my very own OED*. But it's been posited that a proper language should have one word for everything and two words for nothing, so I think it's time to tease out some finer shades of meaning.

A GAME is a competitive event which is at least theoretically good-natured (thus a game of poker qualifies, even if high-stakes) in which the outcome is based on skill or luck of any sort. It is not necessarily physically demanding.

A SPORT is a competitive event which is at least theoretically good-natured** in which the outcome is dependent on some sort of physical capability. Sport IS necessarily physically demanding.

A useful litmus test to determine between sport and game is: Can you do it without sweating?

EXAMPLES:
Sports
Football, rugby, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, foot racing

Games
Baseball, darts, bowling, bocce, auto racing

Yes, I recognize that standing on a baseball field on a hot August day waiting for someone to hit a ball in your direction is enough to make you sweat. But that's a function of the environment, not the game, so it doesn't count.

On a similar note, it's been argued that NASCAR should be a sport, since the drivers sweat so much due to the heat generated by the cars. Not so. This is equivalent to saying that chess, played in a hot room, is a sport.

Horse racing is a sport. The athletes all have four legs and hooves.

I hope this clears things up.


*thanks Ed
**thus war does not qualify, despite being known as The Sport of Kings