I can’t add much to the tremendous answers so far; really, this is might be the best thread I’ve ever read. But I wanted to contribute that I started watching baseball in 1991, when I was 6. I remember sitting on the floor in my family’s living room, flipping through channels, and seeing Mariano Duncan hit a double right over the third base bag. For whatever reason, I thought that was just about the coolest thing ever, and I started watching religiously.
I got to see the Phillies, a team I really got to know in 1992 when my dad started taking me to games, make one of the most improbable runs in baseball history in 1993. Unfortunately, Whitey died a year later, and I never got to fully appreciate him. I hope with DVDs becoming more and more prevalent for just about everything, broadcasts that featured Harry and Whitey will become available. Once Harry leaves – and I hate to even think about it, but it will probably be when he dies – the Phillies (and life, in a way) won’t ever be the same.
One thing that I really like about baseball that I haven’t seen yet is how it’s always there in the summer. Even on the nights the Phillies have off, there is usually a game to be found on TV and I can kick back, enjoy, and “scout” a new team. The day after opening day is always one of the worst, where almost everyone has off after you’ve been given a little tease – fortunately, this year, the Phillies start the day before everyone else, so I can watch them on their opening night, watch a full day of other games on ESPN the next day, and see the Phillies play again when nearly everyone has off. This is just another benefit of being World f’n Champions.
That’s a huge part of it for me, that and what RickJay said.
Back in college another baseball loving guy and I were watching the 1986 Mets/Astros NLCS game 6, that went 16 innings. The tension was deliciously thick, and neither of us was a fan of either Houston or the Mets. I said to my friend in a mock tone of voice, “Baseball is boring, isn’t it?” He said, “Yeah, nothing ever happens!” and then we both just laughed and laughed.
You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.-Earl Weaver
I enjoy all sports, but there is no other sport in existence where I will gladly sit down and watch a game, in person or on televsion, at any time, regardless of which teams are competing, no matter what level (Majors, minors, college, random gathering in the park, whatever). The reasons for that have been covered above far more eloquently than I could ever hope to express, but it amounts to the fact that I can never get enough of baseball.
It kills me that I don’t have access to watch winter ball and some of the other leagues that are out there in the world during MLB’s off-season. I would never grow tired of it.
90 feet. Just the right distance. Grab a slow grounder at short ,rip the throw to first. The 1st baseman is stretching as far as he can. He will just barely be out. It was decided on so long ago. It is so right.
More than any other sport baseball seems like a “game.” Watch pregame and often times their playing pepper on a major league baseball field just like they all have since little league. Or they’ll be laying out in the grass just hanging out.
I took a “Baseball in Society” class in college and he noted this. Just TWO feet farther and a stolen base would be very unlikely for all but the few fastest in MLB. Two feet less and a steal would be almost guaranteed.
Ah yes, but then the distance of the throw would be different. Reduce the distance between bases by two feet, and the catcher would have to throw the ball three feet less, reducing the time the ball spends in the air and increasing accuracy. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it would make up for some of the difference.
I love baseball for the same reasons that many people hate it–I enjoy the pace.
I love that you can be down by 2 runs with 2 out in the 9th with an oh-and-two count and there is still a *possibility *that you’ll come back to win. (Reference game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Mets and the Red Sox.) You know with 3 seconds left in a football/soccer/hockey game it’s impossible to score twice.
I love that it’s a team sport, but there is serious one-on-one psychology between the pitcher and the batter.
I love that it can get tense and emotional but is not a metaphor for war (unless a pitcher throws at someone’s head ;)).
I love that the managers and coaches wear uniforms.
I love that the season lasts half the year and there are games every single day except the All Star break.
I agree with so many of the reasons so far mentioned, but for me, who only became a serious fan when the Nats came to town in 2005, this may be the most important. I know so much more about the game than I did a few years ago, but every time you learn something, you realize yet another dimension in which every pitch changes the strategy for the players and the manager in some small (or not so small) way. And that there is time between pitches for them to make those adjustments – if they’re smart enough.
Another thing for me, and I realize how silly this is, is that every ball park on the planet is theoretically infinite in size. Fair territory is an ever-widening V that goes on forever, while foul territory literally encompasses the whole rest of the planet. When a football goes off the grid, it’s out of play. But if through some crazy concactenation of circumstances, Superman hit a fly ball five miles, the Flash just has to get under it in time and he can still put him out.
I like the idea that at any given moment in a baseball game I could see something totally bizarre that has never happened before and may never again.
The other day there was a link on si.com to a Marv Albert video blooper reel, featuring a sequence I saw live in 1991, late in a Cincinnati Reds game. Score tied in the 9th inning, the opposing team has a man on second and the batter hits a soft liner for a base hit into right. The outfielder, Paul O’Neill has an outside shot at throwing out the speedy runner at the plate and grabs for the ball to make his throw…muffing it. He desperately tries again to come up with the ball, and again it bounces away. In total frustration he launches a mighty kick at it - sending it in a perfect arc to the cutoff man. Meantime, unbeknownst to McNeill the runner has hesitated near third, thinking the ball might be caught, and is stranded there as the relay comes home. Game saved by a miracle! (well, the Reds eventually lost in extra innings, but it was a fabulous play). The video is still available somewhere online.
And just this past Saturday I switched on the Cleveland Indians radio broadcast and the Indians demolished an all-time record, scoring 14 beautiful runs off the Yankees in a single inning (the second), every starter getting one or more hits and scoring at least one run in the inning.
Baseball is great.
It must be great, seeing as how all the greedy, stupid people who populate it haven’t been able to kill it off yet.
I’d love to see managers dressing like this again.
Maybe you were kidding but fair territory ends at the outfield wall (subject to ground rules) and foul territory ends at the spectator seats (can’t remember if the dugout is in play). A player cannot leave the field of play to catch a foul (unless he reaches into the seats and just kind of falls in making the play). And over the fence is a home run no matter what superhero is playing center.
Today is the first 100 degree day in Arizona and that means that start of summer. Time for the D-backs to push the Dodgers right into the pool in the outfield of our stadium!
No it doesn’t. A ball hit 500 feet straight is a home run, a ball hit 500 feet just left of the third base line is foul, so obviously fair territory extends past the fence – regardless of what the fielders are allowed to do about it.
The rules define a home run in 6.09(2)(d) as “A fair ball passes over a fence or into the stands at a distance from home base of 250 feet or more.” However, the definition of “catch” says “A fielder may reach over a fence, railing, rope or other line of demarcation to make a catch.” So even though the rules are written ambiguously on this point, I think the latter definition is what is observed in practice, so I guess Plastic Man could make the catch
