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I've had a few conversations with friends about which sport I'd choose to play if I could be a professional in any sport. I think baseball would be at the bottom of my list.

You have to go to the ballpark nearly every single day for almost 8 months. I'm from Detroit and I'm looking at the Tiger's schedule right now. In September they have TWO days in the entire month without a game. By that time they will also be playing doubleheaders or make up games because of weather. In May they go 21 consecutive days with a game. Even if it's not as physically demanding as hockey or american football, that's exhausting. Imagine having to go to the office that much.

On top of that you're playing until nearly November if you're in the World Series and then spring training starts in Feb (it's already started). There's nearly no offseason.

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And the average salary is $3.8 million.

[1]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/major-league-...

The pay might be high but the average career is much shorter than that of a programmer. I bet the lifetime earnings aren't even that much different than the average person checking HN from California.

Average MLB Career is 5.6 years[1] * $3.8M/year = $21.28M

Divide that by 40 (assuming a career from 25-65) and you still have $532k/year.

[1] http://www.ramfg.com/RAM-Financial-Group-Solutions-Professio...

Taxes are skewed against people who make high annual earnings for short amounts of time, and you also have to take 10% or so out for your agent.

You'll still come out ahead with the baseball career, just not by quite as much.

For players in the minor leagues, trying to work their way to a spot in the show, the salary numbers are nowhere near as good:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/players-sue-for-better...

While major leaguers’ salaries have increased by more than 2,000 percent since 1976,” the lawsuit says, “minor leaguers’ salaries have, on average, increased only 75 percent since that time.”

That leaves minor league salaries typically ranging from $1,100 a month in short-season leagues to $2,150 a month for Triple-A, figures asserted in the lawsuit and confirmed by two major league front-office officials.

But in baseball, almost every player has to play in the minors first. The majority of minor leaguers don't make it to the majors... but it isn't usually possible to tell which type of minor leaguer you'll be for a few years.

So in pursuing professional baseball, you really do open yourself to a significant risk of finding that you're 26 and spent the last five years making very little money and now you don't have a job, or any professional skills beyond the offseason job you may have worked.

Not to mention that you can start a new career once you're done playing ball.

If "it requires extreme dedication" is a showstopper when deciding what sport you would want to play professionally, you probably shouldn't play any sport professionally. Even the 'easy' games such as darts or billiards require hours of practice every day.

But as to baseball: they have games. What are they complaining about? :)

If you pick an endurance sport such as cross country skiing, swimming, or rowing instead of a game (sport is "something with a start and a finish"; a game is something you play), you will easily be training every day for four hours or more for 8+ months in a stretch without ever entering a real competition.

All that for two or three races that count a year or, if you are really good, for one race every four years at the Olympics (rowing is extreme here, as it doesn't do races at different distances, and as it is rare for people to enter in more than one race in an event. Underperform in that race, and it is 4 years of training to get another try. Swimmers and cross-country skiers have it slightly better, as they typically enter in multiple races at an event).

The only plus these sports have over professional baseball is that sportsmen do not travel that much.

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