Tom Hanks' character in A League of Their Own famously said about baseball, "The hard is what makes it great."
That is definitely one of the things that makes baseball great, kind of like why chess is superior to checkers--one is more challenging, and thus more rewarding than the other. Baseball is a very challenging game, and so the success is incredibly sweet.
My dad says that golf is the toughest
sport and that baseball is the second toughest. I see where he's
coming from to an extent. Baseball and golf do have their similarities,
for sure. For instance, there are multiple facets of each game that every player must master: catching, throwing, hitting, putting, driving, chipping, etc. Generally speaking, physique has less to do with ability than in most other sports. Each game includes individual moments in the tee box or the batter's box. The playing fields of each are aesthetically pleasing, and there is no clock.
But baseball is a team sport, and there's something to that in its appeal.
Baseball exemplifies a tension in the American mind, the constant pull between our atomistic individualism and our yearning for community.
GEORGE F. WILL, Men at Work
Imagine if golf were a team sport. You hit a terrific drive, then the next guy has to lay up, the next guy must chip it onto the green, and the next guy would have to putt the ball into the cup. Up and down the course and up and down your lineup you go.
If you personally are "on" in golf, you will be successful that day. As a team sport, though, it would be a bit more complicated than that.
If you personally are "on" in baseball one day, well, if your pitcher is wild, or your clean-up hitter is slumping, or your relief core is throwing meatballs, dude, you're in trouble.
Ultimately, though, it's baseball's connection to the seasons which gives the sport a mystical edge on all other games we play.
There's something about baseball that is in tune with the rhythm of life itself: born in the spring, flourishing in the summer, dying in the fall, and dead in the winter--surely it's not just the English teachers who feel like baseball is a metaphor, on many levels, for life itself, is it?!
A former commissioner of Major League Baseball (and former literature professor) got it, even going so far as to perhaps suggest that baseball is summertime:
The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops ... And summer is gone.
That is definitely one of the things that makes baseball great, kind of like why chess is superior to checkers--one is more challenging, and thus more rewarding than the other. Baseball is a very challenging game, and so the success is incredibly sweet.
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| Smitty prepares to fire one home. |
But baseball is a team sport, and there's something to that in its appeal.
Baseball exemplifies a tension in the American mind, the constant pull between our atomistic individualism and our yearning for community.
GEORGE F. WILL, Men at Work
 |
| Nathan takes a rip at a belt-high fastball from Marcus in the team's final game here in Saudi. |
Imagine if golf were a team sport. You hit a terrific drive, then the next guy has to lay up, the next guy must chip it onto the green, and the next guy would have to putt the ball into the cup. Up and down the course and up and down your lineup you go.
If you personally are "on" in golf, you will be successful that day. As a team sport, though, it would be a bit more complicated than that.
If you personally are "on" in baseball one day, well, if your pitcher is wild, or your clean-up hitter is slumping, or your relief core is throwing meatballs, dude, you're in trouble.
 |
| Andrew on the mound, Ziyad at 2b. |
There's something about baseball that is in tune with the rhythm of life itself: born in the spring, flourishing in the summer, dying in the fall, and dead in the winter--surely it's not just the English teachers who feel like baseball is a metaphor, on many levels, for life itself, is it?!
A former commissioner of Major League Baseball (and former literature professor) got it, even going so far as to perhaps suggest that baseball is summertime:
The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops ... And summer is gone.
A. BARTLETT GIAMATTI
Lucky us--here we are in the midst of summer. Soak it in!
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| Nathan pitches to Chris. |
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| Marcus and one of our fighter pilot friends. |
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| Nic W. drops down a perfect bunt, and Shea reacts to try to make a play on it. |
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| Ziyad takes a healthy cut! |
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