Maybe I should let the start of baseball season go by. Too many people wax poetic about baseball as if it is more of a Zen experience than a sport. Great writers that have tackled baseball abound, such as David Halberstam, J.P. Kinsella and Doris Kearns Goodwin, and explained the lure of the game much better than I ever could. Many more mediocre authors have gone on and on about the glories of the game, it’s timelessness, it’s grandeur. Blah, blah, blah.
And yet, the start of baseball season hits me like no other sport. Maybe because it’s in the spring when I am looking forward to the warmer weather and longer days. Maybe it’s because it’s going to be a daily companion for the next six months (and hopefully longer). Maybe because it takes me back to languid days sitting in the South Carolina sun watching Gamecock baseball, or the thrill of emerging into Connie Mack Stadium as a kid. I really don’t know.
Baseball will never be what it was for me when I was young. I am unlikely to sit through all of a 9-inning game on TV. Too many players strike out swinging for the fences. There are too few singles hitters like Pete Rose and Ichiro for my likes. I will undoubtedly go on a regular rant about a “genius” manager pulling a pitcher because their pitch count is too high (isn’t it amazing that the magic number is 100? How convenient). I will repeat the old man’s lament “The game isn’t what it used to be”.
And yet, all I know is that despite all of that I am really looking forward to the first pitch this afternoon. All I know is that even though logic tells me that the Phillies will be lucky to finish third in their division I am full of hope. All I know is that I will be religiously checking the box scores on a daily basis to see how my favorite players are doing (another 2 for 3, and 2 RBIs for Mike Trout). All I know is that the world feels a little different during baseball season. Play Ball!!!
You keep touching on subjects close to my heart. Westerns and Baseball, there are world’s to explore in each. But and its a big but. Here is an analysis of one of the games in last year’s World Series.
It encapsulates what, I believe is wrong with the sport.
This is baseball?
Some comments on last night’s game in the rapidly disappearing ‘national pastime.’ You know that I view the games with a somewhat jaundiced eye and last night was no exception. A game between the two most overmanaged teams by the twomost infected ‘analytics’ managers. Cash is probably suffering pangs of regret for lifting Snell when he did.
Here’s the story.
• 27 strikeouts
• 4 walks
• 2 homers
• 10 hits
• 19 balls put into play that were fielded for outs
• 12 pitchers
• 3 1//2 hours of watching pitchers play catch with catchers
And these were the two best teams in baseball. Why might you ask do we need 7 fielders? Think of the savings to have two fewer salaries to pay.
So, the game that we loved as young men and women with athletes running and sliding and reaching for spectacular catches is practically gone.
Think of all the sports that we watch. Football, basketball, even hockey have all made changes to juice the action and make for a more entertaining product. Baseball and its hidebound rulers sit idly and watch the games get longer and more boring. The athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and probably smarter and the game that they play doesn’t require much more of them than to throw faster and hit longer homeruns (with high velocity and greater launch angles.)
And yet I yearn for the sport in the winter months and am eternally hopeful about the Phillies chances every Spring. I just want to love it with the same love I felt as a kid.
Major League ball lost me a few years ago. As stated in your article & Michael’s Reply, the game has taken on such a Money Ball philosophy. I couldn’t point out a star in the game today 😳.
Still love college ball all for that reason. Ya never know who’s going to deliver (or not).
That game was the epitome of my frustration with baseball today, but I hadn’t seen the numbers laid out like this. Unbelievable. I always argued with anyone who said that baseball was like watching paint dry, but with games like this, and as you say a game between the best two teams, it gets harder to dispute. I was initially against the DH, because I saw baseball as a game of rallies, but now with everyone just swinging for the fences, I can’t see why the NL doesn’t adopt it. I also liked, to my surprise, the extra inning rule implemented last year. But, as you say, it seems that any lasting change is going to hard to come by.