Why I love baseball
Dec 30 '03
The Bottom Line Baseball is the National Pastime...or was at some time. Here's why baseball has made me a lifetime fan.
I wrote the following treatise in 2000. Since then, Albert Pujols has become a superstar for the St. Louis Cardinals, Mark McGwire has retired, Barry Bonds has had historic seasons, and Ted Williams died. I've also added Ken Burn's Baseball on DVD to my collection, and I've become even more of a baseball lover than when I wrote this.
If I have one regret in my life, it's that I didn't put enough effort into baseball. Like many American boys, I played Little League. It was the summer after fifth grade, and I was terrified. As far as I remember, I didn't have one hit. I know I got on base through walks, but I don't recall any hits.
Now, I think back and wonder what a little more effort, and a little more knowledge of the game, could have wrought. I'd like to think that batting practice and fielding practice would have paid big dividends, and that had I just worked at it, I could be playing in Major League Baseball.
It looks easy, doesn't it? Stand in the box, swing the bat, get a hit, run to first base. Crouch low, have the glove ready, circle the grounder, throw to first.
Anyway, as Ted Williams said, the hardest thing to do in all of sports is to hit a baseball, as its thrown from a big league pitcher. That may be true, but the marathon runner, the Tour de France cyclist and the cross country skier may disagree.
Still, even the game's greatest players only succeed about 1/3 of the time. Imagine that. If I succeeded only 1/3 of the time, I'd still be in 1st grade.
I think baseball is played in Heaven. Heaven is a perfect place, and I believe baseball is the perfect sport. I can picture the game's greats playing inning after inning in Heaven: Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, Walter Johnson, Christy Matthewson, Cy Young, Lou Gehrig, Shoeless Joe, Jackie, Roberto Clemente, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson. If they all played perfectly, I don't know how one team could win.
Of course, two of the greatest are still with us, Willie Mays and Ted Williams. The Splendid Splinter and the Say Hey kid. If I could just have seen them play. I hope to have box seats for the games played in the next world.
I love football; I've been a football fan as long as can I remember. But football doesn't have the romance of baseball. Football doesn't have the finesse, the grace, and especially the history of baseball.
I've liked baseball most of my life, but only in the last three years have I come to love it. To explain it all will take some time, so here we go.
I can still remember watching a Yankees-Dodgers game at my grandparent's house. My brother was with me; I was "keeping score," not a box score, but a line score, as it turns out. It must have been 1976 or '77, when the teams met in the World Series. It may have been the game after Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in one game.
There was a funny way I looked at a line score. In this format, a team's runs, hits and errors are displayed. I thought, "The Yankee's have five runs, 10 hits, no errors. That's 5,100. The Dodgers have six runs, eight hits, one error. That's 681. The Yankee's are winning!"
Don't get me wrong, I didn't literally think the scores added up that way, but I imagined the possibility of scores adding up that way. I still look at scores like that sometimes.
After following the Yankees (and Reggie) like most young Americans for a season or two, I was without a team until 1982, when the St. Louis Cardinals won it all. I remember watching playoff games in my fifth grade class (!) and being greatly impressed with the Cardinals. I cheered for them in the World Series, I discovered the talents of a rookie outfielder (Willie McGee), and the Cards won the series.
They should have won again in 1985, and came very close in 1987. Those Cardinals teams were good. But then the players I followed started to retire or were traded, I was working now, and I didn't follow baseball much after that.
I still enjoyed the playoffs and the World Series, and found joy in listening to play-by- play on the radio as I watched the game on TV. In 1993, I started to follow the Chicago White Sox, going so far as to buy a team hat. But the player's strike in 1994 put an end to that.
A key moment in my passion for baseball was Ken Burn's Baseball documentary which aired on PBS. The series presented the history of baseball, from the mid 1800s to the present day. There are some stories in baseball that are, to me, deeply poetic: Ted Williams hit a homerun in his last at bat; Babe Ruth's last homerun completely left Forbes Field in Pittsburgh; Willie Mays' first homerun was crushed out of the Polo Grounds; anything about Jackie Robinson.
There are some parts of that series that move me almost to tears. Someday, I'm going to own the complete set of tapes, and I'm going to count it among my prized possessions. I hear the DVD set is coming out in September. Anyone want to donate to my cause?
It wasn't until 1997, when I moved to Missouri, that I rediscovered baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals. I listened to games on the radio, with legendary radio man Jack Buck (I didn't watch the games because we didn't have cable). Even at this point, I wasn't quite converted to baseball. The key in getting me there was . . . a video game. Yes, I suppose it sounds silly, but a video game, specifically Front Page Sports Baseball pro '96, from Sierra Sports, turned the tied.
You see, this game was good for it's time. It actually taught me the nuances of pitch selection and location, base-running strategy, developing young players and how each game can turn on a single pitch.
It didn't hurt that shortly after moving to Missouri the Cardinals traded for Mark McGwire. He had a good second half for the team, and the hype for the 1998 season was building all through the winter.
My first major league game was at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, on Saturday, April 18, 1998, against the Philadelphia Phillies. By this time, McGwire already had about 10 home runs and was on his way to his historic 70.
Amazingly, Willie McGee was back with the Cardinals after time with other teams. My old hero and me in the same stadium. A childhood dream came true. I was able to get some picture of him and, at one point, I was only about 10 feet away from him. That first game he had an infield single. It was great to see old Willie play.
My second major league game was just nine days later, when the Montreal Expos came to St. Louis. At the time, the place I worked, Missouri Military Academy, was advertising in the St. Louis Cardinals Magazine. Our connection meant four free tickets. It just so happened that my grandparents were in town, visiting from Utah.
I can still remember that rainy day. It didn't seem like there would be a game that night. But things did clear up, and my grandpa and I (grandma didn't want to go) headed to the stadium. You have to understand, my grandpa is the central male figure in my life; my parents divorced when I was quite young. He was instrumental in my passion for football; he had some influence on my following baseball. Nevertheless, it was a special moment for me to sit in the box seats, real nice ones by third base, with my grandpa. We enjoyed some great hotdogs, drinks, and a 6-1 (I think) Cardinals victory.
I was in Busch Stadium on May 25 when McGwire hit #25 that season. It was the most homeruns anyone had hit by the end of May. The Cardinals lost. I went to three other Cardinals games that year and didn't see any other McGwire homers. In June 1999, I saw my second McGwire homerun.
In August, 1998, my wife and I flew to Detroit where my Dad lived. We had planned the trip to coincide with three game series between the Seattle Mariners and the Detroit Tigers. I was going to see Ken Griffey Jr. My dad was able to get tickets through his work, but he didn't tell me anything about them. We got to the stadium, which was an old, creaky affair in the middle of town. (Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park in Boston both opened in 1912 at the same time the Titanic sunk).
We walked in on the ground level, headed to the seats behind home plate, moved slightly toward first base, and sat down. We were about 45 feet from home plate! Unbelievable !!! The Mariner's on-deck circle was right in front of us. Griffey was 15 feet away at times.
Before the game started, a friendly young man came to us to get our food order. He punched it into a hand-held device, which sent the order to the cooks. Ten minutes later, a nice young lady brought our food out. I think having it delivered made it taste better. Later, we feasted on jumbo onion rings.
As for the game, Griffey struck out three times, but he had the catch of the season in center field. It was an all-timer. Alex Rodriguez (ARod), who is now a premiere player in the majors, had a homer and a stolen base, part of his historic 40/40 season.
I had been to a game with my grandpa. Now I went to a game with my Dad (and my half-brother Adam). It was a wonderful day. I still watch the highlights from that game; I'm sure I watch with a smile on my face.
Why do I love baseball? It's a combination of 5th grade, Ken Burns, video games, Jack Buck, Mark McGwire, onion rings, dads and grandpas.
There's other reasons, of course. Line drives to the gap. Hit and run plays. Come-from- behind wins. The All Star game. A pitcher getting out of a jam. One of my favorite things in life is afternoon baseball. If it happens to be a playoff game, then my pleasure is doubled. If it happens to be a one-game playoff, which happens from time to time, then I'm completely beyond hope.
I realize there are some who say baseball is boring. To them, I say you don't understand the game. In baseball, each pitch and each at-bat is crucial. Each single stretched to a double, each fielder hitting the cut-off man can mean the difference between a win and a loss. In baseball, there's drama in every pitch.
With football, if you're down 14 points in the fourth quarter, it's over. In baseball, if you're down three runs in the seventh inning, nothing's over. Or, as Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over 'till it's over."
Baseball is Willie Mays absolutely flying around the bases. Baseball is Jackie Robinson getting into the majors because he was black, but succeeding because he was great. Baseball is Babe Ruth, the first international sports superstar. Baseball is advancing the runner and stealing a base. Baseball is green fields and hot dogs. Baseball is my love.
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Epinions.com ID:
excremento
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Member: Jason Russell
Location: It's all a state of mind
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Do you know how cool it is to have a newborn in the house?
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