Four Reasons Why Baseball Is So Enjoyable
If someone were to ask me “Why do you enjoy baseball so much?” I would probably offer these points as the four main reasons why, in the following order, with number one being the biggest reason:
1. Nothing in baseball happens on average.
There’s a line from the very first episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine entitled “Emissary” where the character of Captain Benjamin Sisko uses the game of baseball to explain the concept of linear time and essentially how humans experience life:
“The rules aren’t important…what’s important is – it’s linear. Every time I throw this ball a hundred different things can happen in a game…He might swing and miss, he might hit it…The point is you never know…You try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can…but in the end it come down to throwing one pitch after another…and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape…”
This is so true. In baseball, you can be armed to the teeth with a thousand scouting reports on player tendencies and statistical play/run expectancy tables; but, they’re only worth the paper that they’re printed on – because each time the pitcher lets the pill loose, you never know what might happen.
2. Perfection does not always mean success in baseball.
Part of the uniqueness of baseball is the situation where a number of variables on the left side of an equation can be absolute and yet the result on the right side of the equal sign is incongruent. Perfect inputs, or some multiple of them, does not always result in perfect results.
For example: A batter recognizes and times a pitch perfectly. Related, he executes the placement of a perfect swing on said pitch and produces a perfectly solid line drive batted ball. Nonetheless, by chance, the line drive is hit directly at a player in the field who catches it chest-high with ease – and the batter is retired. At the end of the day in this snapshot study, the batter has a batting average, on base average, and slugging percentage of zero. Yet, in reality, he did everything perfect. Unfair? Sure. But, that’s baseball, no?
And, on the flipside, sometimes, in baseball, you do everything wrong and something good comes out of it.
3. Baseball is unique compared to other sports.
In baseball, the defense usually controls the pace of the action. Again, nothing happens in this game until the pitcher throws the ball. Further, it’s been said that baseball is the only sport where the ball is always in possession of the team on defense and the offensive team can score without touching the ball. In addition, there is no “clock” in baseball. As Dave Anderson wrote in 1996, “Without the clock that confines football, basketball and hockey games to so many minutes, a baseball game never expires until the final out. No matter what the score, baseball always provides hope…” And, who doesn’t like hope?
4. The contrary nature of baseball’s pace of game.
Many like to refer to the “leisurely pace of baseball” and how it lends towards the ability of spectators to converse, etc. And, this is true. To the outside observer, baseball does seem to move at a somewhat relaxed pace. However, in reality, the game of baseball is played at a violent speed. Pitches are throw around 90 MPH. As such, batters have about two-tenths of a second to react to a pitch. And, if the ball is well struck by a batter, a ball could be sent into play at a speed greater than 90 MPH. And, fielders have to quickly react to balls like these.
It’s amazing that baseball can be such a relaxing game to watch – and yet it is comprised of a chain of high speed, and explosive, actions and reactions.
In any event, these are my four reasons why baseball is so enjoyable. What are yours?
I like your reasons, although I’m not sure I agree with number 1. Things happen on average in baseball, which is why stats are such a big part of the game as compared to other sports. That being said, things don’t always conform to the average in baseball, and often vary from those averages at the most opportune times, which makes baseball unpredictable.
#2 reminds me of one of my favorite “Peanuts” strip;
“Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?” — Charlie Brown
Great thoughts Steve.
Folks often ask me why I like baseball so much. My answers are normally as follows:
1. There is an element of beauty in baseball which is lacking in the other major sports. The diamond, the expansive outfield, the blue sky, the little white ball soaring into the night, and much more.
2. The ingredients are natural and pleasing. Horsehide ball, wood bat, leather glove, grass, dirt, sun, even the old wool uniforms. There is nothing like playing in the field while pounding your fist into your glove be/tw pitches, pulling your hat down to shield the sun, lunging to snag a grounder, firing the ball to first.
3. No clock. The game has a timeless quality totally lacking in other sports.
4. The mano a mano battle be/tw pitcher and batter. With the game in the balance, that battle is intense.
I could continue but I’ll stop at 4.
Football? a good TV sport, though barbaric. Overhyped and often anti-climatic.
Basketball? another good TV sport, though simplistic in nature with too much late game stoppage.
Hockey? I like it but it, too, is simplistic in nature with too much center ice play.
Others have said the larger the ball, the lower your class. Baseball isn’t full of thugs and miscreants (PED’s don’t count; I’m talking about shootings, assaults, jail time, etc). No doubt to me it’s the best game.
My favorite thing about baseball is they play basically every day. A baseball season, like life, has ups and downs and never stops. Your team can lose 10 games in a row and still finish in 1st. And no matter how bad your team is playing today, there’s always a game tomorrow.
Good points about the leather and wood. Any time I get to hold some wood – please, no dirty jokes! – or get to touch and/or smell leather – I think of baseball.