Add new comment

Doc,
I've been reading here for years, and joyfully so. Never had anything worthwhile to say that wasn't already said eloquently and with dashing wit and humor. I still don't, in fact. But I do know why people watch baseball. I know why you watch it, even. And I know why it's the most popular sport (and ergo, the richest) in the country.
Simply put, baseball is a microcosm for life.
1. Life is a game of standing around waiting for something to happen. It usually doesn't. Unless and until it does, in which case you have a few seconds of utter chaos, and after a quick struggle with that chaos, calm emerges the victor, and more moments of quiet desperation ensue. How many Tuesdays have you seen in your lifetime? And how many days like September 11th? The calm gives meaning to the chaos, and the chaos meaning to the calm.
2. People like things they can relate to, consciously or unconsciously. True, Basketball and Football may have more movement of the ball in "live" ways than does baseball, but would Dr D. trade his life of relative obscurity for that of Kim Kardashian? Do you want your life to be like Jack Bauer's? Does anyone? Or do we prefer to sit on our couches and admire from afar the immense and inexorable struggles of some distant 'other,' which lies safely outside our four walls?
3. You can pay $10 for a very good ribeye at your local deli, or $55 in a very good restaurant. Sometimes you want to pay the $55 to bring a lovely lady out to celebrate her birthday or an anniversary. Sure you could cook her the $10 steak yourself, but you voluntarily choose to overpay so that you can get dressed up and have someone else do it for you. It doesn't mean you're a sucker, just that you enjoy voluntarily breaking up the calm with a bit of chaos from time to time :)
4. Einstein said there are two ways to look at the world - One is as though nothing were a miracle, the other as though everything were a miracle. The emotional investment you allow yourself in any particular game, whether game #87 in June, or the Superbowl in February, depends entirely on you. A few years ago I lived in San Diego and the Seattle Mariners came to town to play the Padres. I've been a Mariners fan since I was 10, watching Griffey dive headlong into history. He had returned to Seattle for his farewell tour, so I bought first row tickets in left field. I was one of about eleven Mariners fans (and about 600 total fans) in the stadium. I yelled to Kenny every chance I got, cheered him on and watched in delight as he grounded out to second base over and over. And then later in the game, a Padre lifted a ball way way back, out towards me in left. Griffey disappeared below me and as the ball came to settle into my first row glove, another one appeared above the wall snatching the home run from my very fingers. It was Him. And I think sometimes about that home run, and how he took it from me. I realize that what he gave me was even greater.
5. Imperfection is the only beautiful thing. Perfection is for snowflakes. Give me an imperfect game because I am an imperfect human watching other imperfect humans fail in spectacular fashion, as I often do.
6. The reason any analytics work is because Life is comically simple.
7. Life is a game of flat-out, miserable failure, almost all of the time. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Struggles are universal. Success is not. Our aim in life is not to succeed though. It's merely to matter. To someone, anyone, to a group or a team, or another person or a cause. And regardless of how rich or poor, how talented or plain we are, we have all failed and in failing learned something true about life, which is that we are human and against all odds, we have existed.
8. What was that, about something going over your head? Point conceded, I suppose.
9. Ask a minor league player's parents, friends, relatives, the bartender who served him his scotch the night before and got tipped $20, if nobody cares who wins. Ask a Spartan in a sparring match if he cares who wins. To your point about bitterness of soul starting in little league… I would think that belied an immense depth of emotion for who wins. Maybe theirs is a different definition than yours.
10. I have great respect for the wisdom and wit you've provided here over the years. When I'm allowed, I'll even pay for it. But something that's always gotten me in trouble, everywhere I've gone, is the need to speak my mind when I feel the grand master has erred. My strength of conviction is overcome only by the blindness of my youth.
Cheers,
Dave