Five Things to Love About Baseball
Ahh. I feel better now. I seem to have found the antidote to the world around me at Keyspan Park in Coney Island, home of the single-A Brooklyn Cyclones. Many things to love about that particular park (ocean in one direction, skee ball in another; decent beer; good seats cheap; professional baseball players who have not yet had enough success to be full of themselves...). But as for baseball in general:
Intensity Every pitch is a mental duel between hitter and pitcher, matching not only wits (what kind of pitch? where? will the batter react in the milliseconds he has between release and contact?) but also skill (will the curve ball really curve? is he strong and fast enough to for the bat to meet the 90+ m.p.h. fastball?). What? You say baseball is boring? You probably only go to movies that have car chases and naked people in them.
Speed Although the game as a whole may appear to progress slowly as pitcher and hitter match wits and mess with each other's minds (you made me stand here in the box while you puttered around thinking about pitches? fine, just as you're ready to throw, I'm stepping out--let's see which of us in control of this game), once the ball is hit, fielders have to judge where the ball is going and how fast, know where the runners are as well as where their teammates are, get to the ball and get it to the right base, landing it in a teammate's glove before the runner--whose job at this point is much simpler--can get there. Bang-bang play indeed.
Math Is Fun You don't have to be a stat geek to be a baseball fan, by any means, but it's added fun if you are. The best hitter in baseball fails more than half the time...but just as any single coin flip has the same chance of turning up heads as turning up tails, in a given at-bat a lousy hitter just might hit a home run. You can break down the numbers lots of ways (how does this guy or this team do against right-handers? on the road versus at home? day versus night games? on Tuesdays in months ending in r?). Pitch count is a fun one: many pitchers wear out predictably, and certain managers put their starting pitchers on a limited count. (I used to predict the future when Jim Riggleman managed the Cubs: "Hmm, Riggleman should be starting up the bullpen now..." I would say to anyone sitting near me. "Okay, he'll be out to make a pitching change in, oh, four more pitches." Three, two, one, and there's Riggleman jogging up the dugout steps. What I learned from this: People are gullible, and Jim Riggleman managed with a cookbook. A lousy one.)
Hope Springs Eternal While it is true that a Boston Red Sox-Chicago Cubs World Series would be a sign of the apocalypse, that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. And on any given day, any team might win. Witness the recent 22-0 defeat of the mighty (so they like to tell us) Yankees. The St. Louis Cardinals are running away with the best record in baseball--they can't seem to lose...except for the 45 games they've lost so far this year. On any given day, either team can win. See above re coin toss...except baseball is not so much random as the contribution of so many variables as to be practically infinite, certainly beyond mathematical prediction.
History, Culture, and Beer Brooklyn Cyclones games begin with a scoreboard video that showcases Jackie Robinson and the other greats of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then the tears of local fans when their team moved to L.A. and Ebbets Field was torn down, and finally the return of pro baseball to Brooklyn, under the defunct parachute drop at Coney Island. Baseball has been around since the Civil War, was mentioned in books by Jane Austen as well as Ernest Hemingway, gave us films like Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, songs like "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (BTW, most people only sing the chorus, which is too bad: the verse is about a rabid female baseball fan)...Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter, took time off at the height of his career to be a war hero, Lou Gehrig was the luckiest man on the face of the earth (not because they named a disease after him), a young woman named Toni Stone got the only hit in an exhibition game pitched by the unhittable Satchel Paige.
Oh yeah, and you can judge a ballpark by the beer. Good ballparks have good beer. (You might have to search for it, but that's part of the fun.) If they only have Bud, go watch the game on a big screen at a nice bar.
Cyclones beat the Tri-City Valley Cats last night in a 2-0 nail-biter, the first game of the New York-Penn League playoffs. Assuming they win one more in this three-game first round, I will be back at Keyspan before the season's out.
Intensity Every pitch is a mental duel between hitter and pitcher, matching not only wits (what kind of pitch? where? will the batter react in the milliseconds he has between release and contact?) but also skill (will the curve ball really curve? is he strong and fast enough to for the bat to meet the 90+ m.p.h. fastball?). What? You say baseball is boring? You probably only go to movies that have car chases and naked people in them.
Speed Although the game as a whole may appear to progress slowly as pitcher and hitter match wits and mess with each other's minds (you made me stand here in the box while you puttered around thinking about pitches? fine, just as you're ready to throw, I'm stepping out--let's see which of us in control of this game), once the ball is hit, fielders have to judge where the ball is going and how fast, know where the runners are as well as where their teammates are, get to the ball and get it to the right base, landing it in a teammate's glove before the runner--whose job at this point is much simpler--can get there. Bang-bang play indeed.
Math Is Fun You don't have to be a stat geek to be a baseball fan, by any means, but it's added fun if you are. The best hitter in baseball fails more than half the time...but just as any single coin flip has the same chance of turning up heads as turning up tails, in a given at-bat a lousy hitter just might hit a home run. You can break down the numbers lots of ways (how does this guy or this team do against right-handers? on the road versus at home? day versus night games? on Tuesdays in months ending in r?). Pitch count is a fun one: many pitchers wear out predictably, and certain managers put their starting pitchers on a limited count. (I used to predict the future when Jim Riggleman managed the Cubs: "Hmm, Riggleman should be starting up the bullpen now..." I would say to anyone sitting near me. "Okay, he'll be out to make a pitching change in, oh, four more pitches." Three, two, one, and there's Riggleman jogging up the dugout steps. What I learned from this: People are gullible, and Jim Riggleman managed with a cookbook. A lousy one.)
Hope Springs Eternal While it is true that a Boston Red Sox-Chicago Cubs World Series would be a sign of the apocalypse, that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. And on any given day, any team might win. Witness the recent 22-0 defeat of the mighty (so they like to tell us) Yankees. The St. Louis Cardinals are running away with the best record in baseball--they can't seem to lose...except for the 45 games they've lost so far this year. On any given day, either team can win. See above re coin toss...except baseball is not so much random as the contribution of so many variables as to be practically infinite, certainly beyond mathematical prediction.
History, Culture, and Beer Brooklyn Cyclones games begin with a scoreboard video that showcases Jackie Robinson and the other greats of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then the tears of local fans when their team moved to L.A. and Ebbets Field was torn down, and finally the return of pro baseball to Brooklyn, under the defunct parachute drop at Coney Island. Baseball has been around since the Civil War, was mentioned in books by Jane Austen as well as Ernest Hemingway, gave us films like Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, songs like "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (BTW, most people only sing the chorus, which is too bad: the verse is about a rabid female baseball fan)...Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter, took time off at the height of his career to be a war hero, Lou Gehrig was the luckiest man on the face of the earth (not because they named a disease after him), a young woman named Toni Stone got the only hit in an exhibition game pitched by the unhittable Satchel Paige.
Oh yeah, and you can judge a ballpark by the beer. Good ballparks have good beer. (You might have to search for it, but that's part of the fun.) If they only have Bud, go watch the game on a big screen at a nice bar.
Cyclones beat the Tri-City Valley Cats last night in a 2-0 nail-biter, the first game of the New York-Penn League playoffs. Assuming they win one more in this three-game first round, I will be back at Keyspan before the season's out.
posted by Maines at 7:13 PM
2 Comments:
Okay, that was a bit long. As in, Steve Trachsel pitching a 15-inning game long. Just getting a handle on this blog thing. I'll be better next time. Promise.
It was sad that the Cyclones didn't make it. I knew I felt the cool breeze of winter settling in on our beloved KeySpan Park when last we got to sing SWEET CAROLINE with faux-Neil on September 6. We'll be back next year though, ready for action.
And, they were less of an embarassment than their parent team.
Rob
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