What baseball means to me Apr03 '08

Every day is a battle. Every inning; every batter; every pitch.

It's a guessing game between the pitcher and batter. Who can fool whom first?

There's an unspoken monologue occurring every moment of a baseball game:

Pitcher: What is he expecting?

Batter: What does he think I'm expecting?

Fielders: Where will I go with the ball if I get it?

Base runners: Where will fielders go with the ball if they get it?

Managers: What's our next move?

Baseball is like a game of chess. You can never quite know what the other side will do, so you must always anticipate two moves ahead. Managers get paid a lot of money to understand the intricate details of every aspect of the game, and to act, rather than react. (And you just thought they sat there eating peanuts all afternoon.)

As a player, baseball requires athleticism, but more importantly it requires "smarts." Unlike the manager, players can only react, but they must anticipate their reaction prior to it happening.

Baseball is one of the only sports that is timeless. There is no clock counting down the remaining minutes in a "quarter" or "half." The inning ends when the defensive team gets three outs. That could take five minutes, or three hours. The inning doesn't stop until three outs occur. Therefore, a game doesn't end (pending weather and local curfew laws) until all outs have been accounted for.

The season is long, at 162 games per team, but each game must be treated like it's the last.

Baseball is best enjoyed without excess commentary or superfluous analysis. Media networks, like FOX and ESPN, damage baseball's sanctity and honor. They treat it like a rodeo show, fully equipped with "know it all" broadcasters, blond sideline reporters, and gaudy graphics and sounds. They try to provide reasoning, logic, and analytics for everything. They give reason to silence, when it's best to just appreciate the silence. Not everything in baseball has a reason. The game provides all the reason you need.

Let baseball be about the game, and not the hype.

It's much more beautiful that way.

Categories: Baseball , Personal , Reflections , Sports

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matthom is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from Chicago. Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.

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