Baseball- Simply the Best
I attended a small social gathering tonight-- and was told that baseball is a boring sport with no action. I hear that complaint often, and I couldn't disagree more.
Baseball is simply-- the best sport-- ever.
College football has history, and it is special for other reasons, mostly because it makes places like Lincoln and South Bend and Knoxville the center of the sports universe each Saturday from August through November.
But nothing comes close to baseball.
Baseball also touches small towns-- like Elmira, New York and Elizabethton, Tennessee and Billings, Montana. They were once called the bush leagues-- but each summer minor league baseball-- even in places like Brooklyn and metropolitan Atlanta-- keep fans in contact at the grass roots level.
As for history, name five guys who played pro football before 1940.
Outside of Grange and Nagurski and Thorpe what have you got?
It's likely you can name five pre-1940 professional golfers before coming up with enough players to fill-out the Chicago Staleys offense in 1921.
Baseball is different. Ruth, Wagner, Gehrig, Cobb, Mathewson, Dean, Ott, Johnson, Tinker, Evers, Chance, Shoeless Joe-- the list goes on, and I still haven't touched post-1940 (Musial, Williams, DiMaggio, Mays, Mantle, Clemente, Aaron) or the Negro Leagues (Gibson, Paige, Bell, O'Neil).
As for the idea that baseball is boring, I challenge you to put a stopwatch on the time between plays in college or pro football. Wake me up for the snap. Let's face it, if football were that exciting-- why have the play clock?
Use a stopwatch between pitches in baseball. If you take into consideration the nuances of the game-- catchers flashing signs, runners taking leads, hitters trying to anticipate certain pitches-- I contend there is MORE action in baseball. You can't put a clock on cerebral.
Ok, so guys don't get pancake-blocked or blindsided cutting across the middle. Save it for the George Carlin routine.
Saturday night we received a trial of satellite TV's MLB package. I watched the Red Sox-Royals, the Pirates-Diamondbacks, and the Braves-Giants-- back-to-back-to-back. You can't do that in the NFL. For the most part, you're stuck with 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Want to watch the Chargers and Raiders Friday night at 11pm? Hope you've got TiVo.
A few years ago on a trip to Arizona we watched the Diamondbacks host San Diego. As we were leaving the game, my wife and I chatted with a retired fellow who goes to 10-15 games a year and keeps score. As I watched him shuffle away in his baggy, khaki pants and tennis shoes, I told my wife, I want to be that guy when I grow old.
The first major league baseball game I ever went to was at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh in 1968. I watched Don Drysdale and the LA Dodgers beat the Pirates 8-4. It was August 16th. I was 10. I have the box score framed in a room upstairs.
How much do I like baseball? I could easily live in Ireland or Italy when I retire. But not full-time-- not without a connection to baseball.
My sports fantasy? You dream of the British Open, I dream of the Caribbean World Series.
Pro baseball in this country dates back to the 1860s. It's suffered through cheating scandals, lockouts, labor strikes, watered down competition, and the steroid era.
But there's nothing like it.
You may not agree, but I believe it's the best sport-- ever.
