Baseball is a game interrupted by sporadic eruptions of athletic interferences.
– Wilfried F. Voss
Yes, I do stand to my statement that Baseball is not a sport. To put it in a nut-shell, Baseball is a game interrupted by sporadic eruptions of athletic interferences, or, as Yogi Berra put it so much more exquisitely, “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.”
Okay, let me give you the quick run-down. I was born and raised in Germany, a country where soccer is the most popular sports of all. Soccer, in turn, is a sport where twenty-two players are in constant motion for two periods of mostly uninterrupted forty-five minutes (At least that’s how I remember it.). I have heard complaints about it like, “I don’t like soccer, because you never know when the game ends.” Well, think of baseball, football, basketball, or hockey, and tell me at what time exactly the game will end. I believe, soccer is not as popular here in the United States as it is in the rest of the world, because it does require ninety minutes of uninterrupted attention. That leaves no time for a trip to the bathroom or the refrigerator.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy watching baseball while writing posts for my blog (Tonight it’s Tampa Bay at the Boston Red Sox), browsing on the Internet, or reading a magazine. But with 160+ excruciatingly slow games per season it takes a lot to get me excited, especially when it comes to watching the tremendous lack of urgency the players demonstrate during nine long innings. In baseball terms this behavioral pattern is called “patience.” I call it a lack of passion.
Talking about passion… When I came into this country a mere twenty-one years ago I was excited about American football. I still remember watching my first Superbowl in 1989, San Francisco 49ers vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. And I still remember Tim Krumrie of the Bengals, who suffered a broken leg while trying to tackle Roger Craig, and I saw the slow-motion re-play way too many times. The story is, Krumrie stayed in the locker room until the game was finished, refusing to leave his teammates.
You may ask, what has that to do with baseball?
Well, for the last eight years I have been married to an Irish-American red-head, and she is a wicked Red Sox fan. During the brief period of dating, and an insignificantly longer time of being engaged, my wife did follow the Red Sox games, however, without my participation, due to obvious lack of enthusiasm. That changed in the following 2003 season. Trying to please my wife I started watching the games with her, and, naturally, I had a lot of questions. These questions had the potential of creating great stress on our relationship (“Why isn’t there a coach at second base?”). Add to this my wife’s deficiency explaining the game in layman’s terms, especially when she is angry at me.
Such a situation arose during a game when the then-manager of the Boston Red Sox, whose name is not to be uttered in this household, pulled the starting pitcher Derek Lowe, because he had a blister on his thumb. Hey, Tim Krumrie, I wanted to yell into the TV, they just pulled somebody out of a game because he had a blister on his thumb! Okay, I also remember Curt Schilling’s bleeding ankle during the 2004 World Series, and that temporarily shook my view on baseball.
Just for the record, I did follow the entire 2003 season, including that fateful seventh play-off game versus the hated New York Yankees. Like so many others I yelled at the TV in disbelief when the then-manager of the Red Sox (you know, the un-person whose name is not to be uttered in this household) did not pull the pitcher, Pedro Martinez, even though he was very obviously exhausted at that point. Think about it. I had “learned” baseball during the previous six months, and even I knew the manager had just made a fatal mistake.
What it all comes down to is that I experienced the drama that so many Red Sox fans had endured during many previous seasons. As they say, the rest is history. The Red Sox won the World Series the next year. Many fans have waited a lifetime to see the Red Sox win the World Series; too many Red Sox fans lived a life without seeing it. I can say, I saw the drama in my first season, and the Red Sox won the World Series the next year. That’s what I call German efficiency.
Still, I don’t consider myself a baseball specialist. I still have too many questions about the game, and most of them are not polite. How come that Dustin Pedroia never swings at the first pitch? How come that Manny Ramirez can take a piss during the game? How come that players endure injuries while running 90 feet from one base to another? How come they stop games when it rains?
Well, I guess, I will continue watching the Red Sox games, and maybe some day somebody will have answered all my questions. Until then I will enjoy America’s game.
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those are some weird questions to justify a lack of interest in baseball. i have many questions about it too, but i still love it nor do i really care if they make sense or not. theres rules to all sports that dont make sense to me. i couldnt get into baseball for 20 years until i watched cliff lee pitch in the 09 world series. after that, i was hooked. thats fine if u dont like it though. its not for everybody.
“How come that Dustin Pedroia never swings at the first pitch?”
Many players sit on the first pitch. It allows them to adjust to being in the batters box. Hitting a ball thrown at 90-100 miles an hour is drastically different from hitting a ball thrown at 80-90 since these players have to be able to hit all these pitches they generally take the first pitch so that their eyes can adjust.
“How come that Manny Ramirez can take a piss during the game?”
This…I don’t get…so you’re telling me if a guy’s in the dugout and needs to take a leak he should be allowed to walk the 30 feet to the bathroom in the clubhouse?
“How come that players endure injuries while running 90 feet from one base to another?”
This one’s easy, stand still for about 15 seconds, then blast into giving 100% effort for 90 feet. Oh one more thing you have to go 100% all the way there but if you go 91 feet you’re out so now you’re going from 0% immediately to 100% then back to 0%.
In soccer players are in constant motion and generally build up to 100%, this causes many fewer pulled muscles.
“How come they stop games when it rains?”
Couple reasons, grip is so vital in baseball, one slip and a guy’s taking a ball at 90MPH to the head, someone in the fans is hit with a bat, etc. Plus water on the infield turns the field into a bog that’s impossible to play one (groundballs just stop in the mud where they’re hit instead of rolling).
Finally when someone says they know exactly when one of the American sports is going to end they don’t mean an exact time of the day (soccer is actually probably better at predicting that). What they mean is that there’s a definite end point, a loud buzzer where play stops and nothing else can happen. In soccer the clock never stops, the refs guesstimate how much longer they should play, that’s way too much power to give to a ref, even more than deciding if a player is safe at home to an American.
Thanks for the explanation, even though I don’t agree on several levels, especially the one of “stand still for about 15 seconds, then blast into giving 100% effort for 90 feet.” Last night one of the New England Patriots returned a ball for 103 yards! Same situation. No injuries (even though in Football there is always a potential for injuries, however, hardly ever self-inflicted.)
It really comes down to the 100% effort that the majority of MLB players don’t show. I know that David Ortiz, who is not the best runner in the league, ALWAYS runs his heart out. Others just travel leisurely and still injure themselves.
And, by the way, Manny Ramirez was ON THE FIELD when he disappeared through a door under the scoreboard to take a piss. That’s recorded “history.” This is just one small example of lack of professionalism.