I love baseball. I love watching it on TV. I love watching it in person. I love listening to it on the radio. I love reading the box scores and digging through the statistics. I love the history of baseball: Ty Cobb (racist), Shoeless Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean, Joe Dimaggio, Jackie Robinson, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, and all the other more modern players.
It’s Monday night/Tuesday morning and I’m ecstatic because Monday was opening day. 162 games from now, my favorite team – the Seattle Mariners – will either be in the playoffs or not (probably not), but in the meantime, there will be a game almost every day throughout the summer. We beat the Twins last night, so now there are 161 games left. Ken Griffey, Jr (now a senior, I guess) hit a home run and set a record for most opening day homers. Good for him.
Last year, the M’s were pretty bad, but I followed the team and I cheered for them.
That’s the definition of a fan: You cheer for your team even when they suck.
I think baseball is the best spectator sport ever invented. Please don’t argue with me – if you prefer basketball or lacrosse or cricket or ice dancing or donkey polo, that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. If you think NASCAR racing is a better sport than baseball, you’re wrong. NASCAR is not a sport. What, are you an idiot? You're not entitled to THAT opinion. Go away.
Here’s why I think baseball is better than other sports:
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” In most sports, a team can build up a lead and then just sit around and run out the clock. This is true for basketball and football. In baseball, however, no matter how far behind you are, you always have a chance to come back in the ninth inning. In 2004, in the playoffs, the Yankees were up three games to none against the Red Sox. They had to win only one more game. In the ninth inning of game four, the Red Sox rallied to win the game. Then they won the next three games and got into the World Series. I’m not a Red Sox fan, but I hate the Yankees.
OK, OK, some non-baseball sports don’t have a clock. You could argue that it’s impossible to run out the clock in a game like poker or darts or, I don’t know, dodgeball. Fine. I'll give you that. Also, I would admit that rain might make baseball teams play slowly...
In the immortal words of Casey Stengel, “There’s three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win or you can lose or it can rain.” This is the exception to the “it ain’t over” rule. If it looks like it might rain and your team is behind, you might try to slow things down, so the game is called before it becomes official. Also, if your team is ahead and you’ve already played five innings, you might delay the play, so you automatically win when the rain starts to pour.
What’s great about baseball is people with average bodies can become stars. You don’t have to be freakishly tall (basketball) or freakishly wide (football) to excel. Yes, I know a bunch of baseball players used steroids, but we shall not talk about that.
Each baseball field has a unique shape. Boston has the green monster. In San Francisco, a home run can go into the water in McCovey Cove. Some stadiums have lots of room for catching foul balls; others don’t. The left field wall might be close (good for right handed hitters) or far away (bad).
Baseball is mathematically educational. How many young fans hated math until they learned that they needed math to figure out batting averages and ERAs? If you’re a major math geek, you can join SABR. My younger brother would sometimes say things like, “If Rod Carew gets a hit, his average will go up by two points.” My brother was really good at math.
Baseball has inspired better literature and better movies than other sports. Think about it:
Poems about baseball (just off the top of my head):
“But there is no joy in Mudville – Mighty Casey has struck out.”
“These are the saddest of possible words: Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Books about baseball (fictional or otherwise): by David Halberstam, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bernard Malamud, W.P. Kinsella, George Will (who is wrong about almost everything except his love of baseball), Ring Lardner, and numerous others.
Movies about baseball: “Eight Men Out,” “Bull Durham” (the best of the three Kevin Costner baseball movies (Did Costner make three movies about basketball or horse racing or hockey? No. Because baseball is the best sport.)) "A League of Their Own” (which taught us that "there is no crying in baseball"), “Damn Yankees,” “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” “Bang the Drum Slowly” (one of De Niro’s first movies), “The Pride of St. Louis” (a great movie about Dizzy Dean), “Pride of the Yankees” (about Lou Gehrig), the HBO movie about Jackie Robinson (can’t remember the name), and numerous others. I almost forgot the Ken Burns documentary. That was good, too.
If critics made lists of the best sports poems, sports books, or sports movies I’m pretty sure baseball would outnumber any other sport on all three lists. Because baseball is the best sport.
And, for god’s sake, did the Vulcans on Star Trek ever play soccer or basketball or golf? Never never never ever. But Vulcans played baseball in an episode of DS9. Obviously, it's the most logical sport.
Baseball economics is a weird combination of laissez-faire capitalism and democratic socialism. Other big league sports have salary caps, which I despise. Yes, the athletes are making millions, but the owners of the teams are billionaires. Is it fair that the millionaire players should have their salaries capped so the billionaire owners can make more money? Where’s the salary cap on Paul Allen or Mark Cuban or the Steinbrenner family? Capping the salaries of the millionaire players means putting more money into the pockets of the billionaire owners. Is that what you want? I didn’t think so. The team owners are the ones with money; the players are the ones with talent. If you’re going to cap the players’ salaries, then you should cap the revenues the owners get from broadcast and cable stations. You should cap the price of a beer or the price of a hot dog. I don’t like salary caps. Plus, the players have a union and I like unions.
So the economic playing field isn’t level. The NY Yankees make a ton of money and can afford to pay their players well. Kansas City, on the other hand, has a small market and small money.
What baseball does is tax the rich teams and give welfare to the poor teams. The Yankees overpay their players, so they pay a luxury tax. Some of that money ends up going to the KC Royals.
I hate the Yankees, BTW. Hate ‘em, wouldn’t want to date ‘em.
Baseball gives us hope. When the season begins, there’s always hope. Maybe this year my team will win enough games to make it to the playoffs. There’s a few new players. Maybe some young guys who came up from the minors, maybe some veteran who came from another team. And there are a couple of guys who were injured last year, but now seem healthy.
And when your favorite team is mathematically eliminated from the post-season, it’s time to say, “Wait ‘til next year.” The cycle of hope begins again.
Finally, baseball gives us laughs. Here are two classic comedy routines:
Abbott and Costello: Who’s on first?
George Carlin: Baseball vs. football
And here’s my answer to the anti-gambling rule. I think Shoeless Joe Jackson should be entered in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 90+ years later, let’s put him in the Hall of Fame. He was a great player. Then we make a rule that Pete Rose (who gambled on baseball) or Alex Rodriguez (who used steroids) will be inducted into the Hall of Fame after 90+ years. In other words: not in your lifetime, you bastard. No ceremony, no speeches.
This is my second diary. My first was about the Bush Administration’s evisceration of the right of Habeas Corpus. People seemed to like my first diary, so I'm writing a second one. I hope you like this one, too.
Thanks for reading this far.