Baseball Post

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about baseball.

Soccer, hockey, basketball, college baseball--all are in the process of or have recently crowned champions.

Lord Stanley's cup in the Carolinas. College World Series champions...in Oregon? My late friend John Dye, who hated most sports, wouldn't have been happy with an Oregon State Championship in anything. He worked on his PhD at Oregon and was of the belief that nothing good ever came from Corvalis. But who plays baseball in Oregon? Where did these kids come from?

Soccer. So much talk of the U.S. team's failure in the world's most popular sport. Sometimes, this country's lack of international conformity ticks me off...however, this is a case where my sporting spirit is aroused.

This country was founded on originality/non-conformity. We don't do well with international stuff.

Let's face it, there's not much new under the sun--sports, like songs, (the Beatles invented most rock song structures and styles, which were derived from blues, country, soul, and jazz, and back it goes...) have mostly been done before. Generally, sports are based on the "goal/ball, etc." model.

There's two thingies on each end of some sort of playing surface. You guard yours, and try to exploit your enemy's/opponent's. This idea is downright militaristic, really. I wonder how a team of Iraqi insurgents would fare against the American military in a game of soccer? How about a game of baseball? Best 4 out of 7? I'm pretty sure we could take them, and no one would care if we kicked them in the shins.

Baseball isn't even a wholly original game. Cricket, Rounders. End of history lesson.

To me, baseball is wholly different than cricket or rounders, because I've played it, and I understand it. Good ol' American baseball has very complex rules (raise your hand if you truly understand the infield fly rule?) and its intricacies make it "boring" to a lot of people. . .

...And I don't blame them for finding it boring. Truly, I don't understand the intricacies of soccer, but I don't think its intricacies are...as intricate.

Baseball is a truly elegant game. There's no arguing this--no sport requires a more well-rounded athlete--strength, hand-eye coordination, vision, leaping ability, the ability to play well on both offense and defense...baseball players do lots of things well, including what is universally considered the most difficult thing in all sports--hitting a ball, 3 inches in diameter-- thrown pretty much AT you at speeds approaching 100 mph-- with a 2 1/4 inch bat.

What about other sports?

I think American (particularly the professional brand) football is really the wussiest sport. They make a major production number of playing 2 hours once a week on Sundays with a long break between halves, extended dancing in the end zone, prissy padding and prima donnas to spare. Loosely based on rugby--which they play in shorts and no pads and helmets. Rugby players...not wusses.

Hockey players. Not wusses.

While this is another ball/goal/surface game, there's a variation--the ball's a puck and the surface is ice. These guys skate!!! Hockey games go on for hours. Most players are missing teeth. There's strength, endurance...hockey players go out there almost every night during a very lengthy season...there's always blood spurting, hard checking, high sticking action. Do hockey players whine? Never. Badasses, all.

Soccer. Yet another ball/goal sport, this is another one played on grass. zzz. the ball is round. The only real hitch is you can't use your hands. Well. Unless you're the goalie. There's an idea, have the goalie on equal..."footing" with everyone else--he only uses his feet, then you've got a better, more high scoring sport!

So you started kicking a ball when you were 2. You got better at it, and some people got better at it than others. You kick the ball. You sometimes hit it with your head. If you're a goalie, you are allowed to catch the ball in your hands. Endurance is required, but often, there are long pauses or breaks in the action when players, hands on hips, casually walk about the field.

As a soccer fan, you wait. And wait....and wait some more.

I can find the nuance in every single pitch of a baseball game, anticipate what the pitcher, catcher, and batter are thinking, and know that each infielder and outfielder are thinking about the current situation. Players consider what they need to do in a seemingly endless list of possible scenarios so that they are ready to execute. Still, sometimes the execution fails.

Soccer. Kick it to that guy. He's good. Nope, no opening there. Kick it back to that other guy.

Now, I know there's attacking, strategies, etc. in Soccer--but the number of soccer strategies is finite! That's why I can hang in, watch, and enjoy soccer for maybe 30 minutes before I get completely bored with it.

Even those American football wussies can come up with a variety of different plays to run--and they all have cool names like flea flicker, Statue of Liberty (it only works once, don't throw it away...) reverses, fakes, and more....

But no other sport has the bunt. The bunt is the one sports play in the world that's almost impossible to defense, even if the defensive team knows its coming. A well-placed bunt requires the defense to execute perfectly to get a free out. There's also varations on the bunt theme--bunting for a base hit for the faster guys, the "straight sacrifice" to move a runner over, the squeeze offers endless thrills and comes in two varieties-- the safety squeeze, and my favorite--the suicide squeeze--this is where there's a guy on third, he starts barreling straight for home and hopes and prays for two or three things--most importantly that the guy at the plate got the signal and bunts, because if he swings the runner could get a bat or ball right in the face...if the batter does nothing, then the runner is sure to be out. Now that's high drama.

Kick the ball to that guy. Nope. Nothing there. Kick it back. zzz.

So in a season where my hometown, favorite team the Atlanta Braves are bad after 14 straight years of mostly goodness, I'm slowly converting to Detroit Tiger-ism (I have a weakness for worst to first teams).

In a very sporty summer, I'm trying to understand why the rest of the world is surprised or even cares that we don't play well with them when it comes to sports.

Earlier this summer, in a baseball tournament that was engineered to let the Americans win (World Baseball Classic) at America's past time against the rest of the world, we managed a resounding loss.

The bottom line--there's no money in playing well with others, and money is what brings America to play.

Go Beavers.