Baseball, not redundant

At a recent worship team practice or youth group (I forget which), I was talking to our worship leader, Ken, about how our main sound tech guy was on his annual golfing trip.  We mentioned how he was playing 18-27 holes a day and how nice that would be.  Ken was quick to point out how he'd rather be watching 18 innings of baseball a day then playing all that golf.  My sentiments too.

I seem to write about baseball a lot.  I like many other sports and probably enjoyed playing football the most, but there's something about baseball that causes me to want to be poetic, linguistic and tell its tales.  The first time I really remember writing about baseball was in my 10th grade English class taught by Robert Smith (still the best teacher I've had).  We took a look at the movie, The Natural, starring Robert Redford and how his character, Roy Hobbs, was a presentation of the King Arthur Legend.   I think the legends, the stories,and  mystical nature of baseball history has made it intriguing to me.  It's stories are ones that are passed down from generation to generation, as a grandfather tells a grandson how he saw Bob Feller pitcher, Willie Mays run down a fly ball, or Ted Williams knock out a base hit.  How a father tells his children about Dennis Eckersley's No-hitter, seeing Rod Carew swipe a base, or Reggie Jackson hit a towering home run.  I know I will tell my kids about seeing my favorite player, Nolan Ryan, pitch.  About seeing Ken Griffey Jr's sweet swing, and Kenny Lofton's amazing catches along the outfield wall.  The stories of past players seem to continually build upon and enrich the history of baseball

There are many large-than-life figures too, from Babe Ruth to Satchel Paige to Shoeless Joe Jackson to Jackie Robinson and many almost-too-good-to-be-true tales like Ruth calling his shot; Paige waiving in his outfielders and infielders because he knew he'd strikeout the side; Shoeless Joe's bat, "Black Betsy"; and the countless times Jackie stole home (19 in his career). 

The legends we hear about the game peak are interest as we discuss, debate, and even argue about who's the greatest, how a particular player would do in today's game, and try to adjust stats for the time era the player played in.  It makes for great theatrics to try to pit our favorite players of yesterday and today on the same diamond.  Author Kevin King tries to do this a bit in his book, All the Stars Came Out That Night, as he puts together a fictional account of the stars of the Major Leagues and Negro Leagues coming together to play a great all-star game in the depression era.

This is what's great about baseball, its a game for everyone...the fanatic, the family, the leisurely fan, the historian, the writer and musician alike (check out The Baseball Project).  This seems like a hodgepodge of baseball thoughts, so more on all of this in upcoming posts.





Record of attended Indians games: 0-1

2010 MLB Games attended: 1 to date

Hot Dogs eaten at a game this year: 1 to date (1 last game)