Major League Baseball’s playoff games begin at around three in the morning, Bulgarian time, and as far as I can tell, no one here is paying much attention.

The Red Sox and Yankees are squaring off again. To tell the truth, I’m glad to be away from all the hoopla. Of course, anyone who knows me knows which side I’m on: the side of truth, justice, beauty, long hair and beards. But in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? No, but that doesn’t stop me from checking the scores when I get out of bed.

I’m especially glad to be missing the American football season. I stopped watching American football – as opposed to real football, the game the rest of the world watches and that we call “soccer” – a long time ago. I stopped watching not because of the protests during the national anthem, but because the game is faux war, and what kind of society regards war as fun, as entertainment, as an ongoing means of addressing world problems?

Though my international students are only passingly familiar with either sport, I ran the late George Carlin’s famous football vs. baseball routine by them, and they appreciated its implications. Carlin made his comedic career by telling the truth in such an unvarnished way that people laughed, because they thought he had to be kidding. His assessment of the two sports is dead on:

“In football, the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe!”

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But George Carlin was right. America began to lose its soul when its militaristic version of football supplanted baseball as its most popular sport. The only thing good to come out of American football in recent years is the long-overdue discussion about law enforcement and the mistreatment of minorities, spurred by players taking a knee during the national anthem.

This sort of protest – peaceful, public, provocative – is explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution. It’s one of the reasons we havea constitution. The right to redress the government for grievances is fundamental to a free society. Communist countries do not allow their citizens to openly display dissatisfaction with the unjust use of official force, but the right to public protest is woven into the fabric of American life. Those who call the kneeling players anti-American are themselves engaging in anti-Americanism.

I love baseball. I appreciate a leaping catch in the outfield or a well-placed sacrifice bunt as much as I do a great song or painting or book. I’m not sure I’m on board with the mass commercialization of professional sports, but I’m glad that the athletes are at long last making as much money as the advertisers.

But I’ve grown weary of watching recent post-seasons. I love baseball for its heroic individual performances: Jack Morris going the distance in a ten-inning shutout in the 1991 World Series, Dave Roberts stealing second base in 2004 when everyone in the ballpark knew he was running, Fernando Valenzuela gutting out a 5-4 victory in 1981 with his team two games down and turning around the whole Series. I’m sick of managers pulling their starters when they get into trouble in the third inning. If I wanted to watch a faceless, collectivist battle of attrition, I’d turn on a European football match.

Funny thing, though – I’ve watched some European football lately, and found myself enjoying it. Fans call it “the beautiful game.” And there is something sublime about watching a group of people work patiently toward a goal that is difficult to achieve. Like, say, world peace, racial and gender equality, that sort of thing. It’s only a game, of course, but the games people play say something about their dreams.

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