.

Dailing down, for a moment, the focus on Zen and on objective purity ... here are a few things that I personally found beautiful about game 3 of this year's Fall Classic:

.

The Boston Red Sox.  In the year 1901, the Boston Red Sox (ahem, "Americans" until 1908 - in the NFL my family refers to the local team as the "Boston Americans", because of the helmet logo) were led in victories by Cy Young.  He won 33 games, lost 10, and had a 1.62 ERA.  His Wins Above Replacement clocked in at 12.6, and he was in his prime.  Three years later, Young threw baseball's first perfect game, Perfect Game #1.

There is something timeless and beautiful about a team name that refers to baseball stirrups.  It is simple, it is unpretentious, and it is Americana.  

The city of Boston is not a recent development, not by American standards.  The baseball team has been part of the community for a while now. In 1901, the Huntington Grounds were 635 feet to center field, had patches of sand where grass wouldn't grow, and there was a tool shed in play.  

Baseball's roots are American, its tree trunk is American, and its branches and leaves are American.  It is a peaceful, prosperous, wholehearted and optimistic way to pass one's time.

The Red Sox' uniforms, in the year 2013, would not seem unusual to a man born during the Civil War.

.

The St. Louis Cardinals.  The St. Louis team became "The Cardinals" in 1900.  Guess who led them in WAR?  Cy Young, who "jumped" from the Cardinals to Boston before the 1901 season.  (Interestingly, the 1882 "Cardinals" were named the Brown Stockings.)

The "birds on a bat" design dates back to 1922, and ninety years later it is one of the most universally-recognized logos in the world.  Here is an interview with a modern Cardinals design consultant.

When I was in Little League, I was transfixed by the simplicity and variety of the team logos.  I hoped that I would get to play with the Pirates.  But the Cardinals also seemed very cool.  So did the Cubs.  There is something odd about the fact that innocuous animals like Orioles do not seem harmless in baseball.  That one, you'll have to explain to me.  No NFL team would call itself the Orioles, would they?  Maybe they would.  ::shrug::

...

What was happening in 1901?  Open your newspaper and you'd have read that ... Teddy Roosevelt decided to call it the "White House."  The first trans-atlantic radio signal was sent.  X-rays were discovered.  

Australia seceded from Britain.  In Texas they discovered that there was oil.  JP Morgan started US Steel.  

The pop music was Ragtime March.  Movies?  There was a bit of footage of McKinley taking his presidential oath.

And the St. Louis and Boston Ball Clubs were playing a game that, to a casual fan, would look just like the game looks now.  Very few things, in America, look like they did in 1901.  You're left with the impression that baseball is a mighty Treant, looking on calmly as eons ebb and eons flow.

.

The Fans.  Gordon could write us a moving essay about the fans.  Of either city!  St. Louis probably does have the best fans in baseball.  On the other hand, Fenway Park is a bucket list item.  If you were on your death bed, would you regret that you had never seen a game in Fenway?

My son John was surprised to learn that the World Series is not played on a neutral field, as is the Super Bowl.  What, the local fans get to see the games played in front of them?

.

The Matchup.  John Dewan points out, in this outstanding article, that (this year!) we get to see the best team from the American League play the best team from the National League.

Both teams won 97 games; Boston had the best run differential in baseball, at +197, and St. Louis had the next-best, at +187.  There is beauty in the fact that the champions happened to be the best teams.

What you might not have understood about the Cardinals, before John's article, was that they had the very best pitching in all of baseball.  Their defense was lousy, allowing -39 runs more than would an average/mediocre MLB defense.

(The Tigers got to the ALCS similarly -- their pitching was exceptional, but their defense allowed -63 runs more than average defense would.  The Tigers and Cardinals punted defense.)

If there is one aspect of baseball that Dr. D considers (lately) overblown, it's glovework.  The Cardinals and Tigers happen to agree.  But ... The issue of defense played heavily into Games 1-3.  You could say that poor defense gave away all three games.  Or not.

.

The Rules.  You know what the strike zone is there for?  The 1872 pitchers were supposed to give the batter a fair chance to hit the ball ... but without making it too easy.  A hundred and fifty years later, it is still 60 feet, 6 inches, the bases are still the same distance*, and we still have bang-bang plays at first.

Watching Koji Uehara hit the corners of the strike zone tonight, it hit me that you could time-warp a Red Sox fan into the seats from a hundred years ago.  How much coaching would he need to understand the dynamics of the matchup?  Absolutely zero.  Would that be true in the NBA?  Or in the NFL?

.

The Mistakes.  At least two games, maybe all three, were decided by imperfections in the play.

Some people react angrily to human frailty.  For me, it was poignant to watch a baseball pitcher throw the ball down the 3B line, losing a game.  Have you never thrown a ball down the 3B line?

These aren't automatons.  I'm glad they are not.  The very best baseball player in the world has the same hopes, fears, and frailties that you do.  It's a difference in degree.

Some things are best done by machines, including, sadly, chess.  Baseball is human, and humans are beautiful.  Not in the cliche'd sense, but in the dictionary sense.  A great athlete's triumphs, and setbacks, and courage, and poise, all fall into that category for us.

David Ortiz strikes out, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia throws balls down the foul line.  They'll be back tomorrow, grimly trying to do better.  When they do, we might get choked up.  In any case:  we fans, having watched that, will try to resolve our own life problems with greater determination.

.

The Tradition and the Novelty.  It's the same game it was 100 years ago.  And tonight, everybody was saying they had never seen a game end that way before.

Which is something you hear about once a week in baseball.  That you just saw something -- something important -- that you had never seen happen before.

How can that be?

Hm.  ... anyway:  baseball is an ancient scaffolding ... on which fresh portraits are routinely painted.  The contrast is poignant.

.

The Umpires.  It was a memorable shot, Saltalamacchia tagging out the second runner to come into home plate in the 9th, and the home plate umpire immediately and decisively pointing down to third base, signalling that the runner was safe.

Even in the face of such crushing pressure, the umpires remain relaxed and retain "soft vision," coolly taking in --- > not only the critical play occurring within 10 feet, but everything that is happening around the park.

I don't know how they do it.  Here's a postgame interview.

The players, the umpires, the managers, the ballboys and everybody else [allowed onto the grass] maintain a surgical frame of mind as they go about their business.  I don't know how Dr. Grumpy maintains his state of mind, in a surgical crisis, and I don't know how MLB(TM) actors do so either.

It is beautiful, though, you've got to give them that.

.

The Mariners.  You tell me.  How much beauty, how much soulfulness, have the Nintendo reps delivered us?

Be happy you have a baseball team at all, Howard told us this month.  If it weren't for us ... (sic; if it weren't for Hiroshi Yamauchi!, who could have appointed anybody his representative) ... the Mariners would be in Tampa.  So you can just shut your yaps about all the rest of it, everything that happens after we don't move to Tampa.  In perpetuity.  

If a hundred years from now, we still don't care about the pennant the way the Cardinals do, remember 1995.  We delivered our ultimatum, you were able to meet it, and you may forever after give thanks.

Well, Howard, we are a major league city, that's true, thanks to the stadium we built.  Whether we are a part of Americana, a part of the fabric of American baseball, that is another subject.

There is a whale of a difference between what the Seattle organization gives us, and what the Cardinals give to St. Louis.  What the Cardinals give their city, that is American beauty.  A full-throated battle for a pennant, that is what they gave your great-grandfather, and that is what they're giving you now.  They'll be giving it to your great-grandchildren.

But, hey, there are a lot of things to do in a baseball park besides just watch a game.

........

The good news is:  the individual Mariners on the roster, many of them do care about the pennant.  Watching Felix in the 7th inning of a game, when he is behind 0 to 1, there's nothing anybody can do to suppress that manifestation of beauty.

Beauty isn't all there is to sports.  I'm not going to be worried much about it during Monday night's Seahawk game.  But it does have its place, and the more so in the particular sport of baseball.

Enjoy,

Jeff

.