Baseball < Football ?

I don't know if it's been the NFL marketing squad or a realignment of the sports world's celestial spheres, but there have been an astonishing number of compelling personal narratives in professional football this year. Here are just a few:

• Brett Favre: yadda yadda...

• Michael Vick: He may not be getting much playing time, but his redemption tour has been a model of public relations rebranding.

• Vince Young: This guy has been through more ups and downs in the last three years than just about anyone.

• Payton Manning: Still doing his thing...

• Drew Brees: On fucking fire.

• Bill Belichick: 4th down call may never stop being debated.

These are all extremely compelling personal narratives that weren't typically found in football not too long ago. Football was supposed to be the ultimate team sport, no one was allowed to take off his helmet, etc. These kinds of stories were more likely to come from baseball ...

Which begs the question: what happened during this year's baseball season? Not much. The Kevin Greinke story was nice, but that's about it...

So what does that say about the state of the two sports? I don't think it's outrageous to say that football long ago replaced baseball as America's national secular religion, but does this magnetic reversal of the personality poles signify that baseball is in the midst of a more precipitous decline?

The next Baseball Commissioner has a lot of work to do...