Playoff Baseball is the Best Baseball

Cubs Took A Seat But I am Still Watching

I never played baseball. Little league for a bit. It is the quintessential American game. Don’t tell me football is. Football is about military-style execution which is why so many commentators like it. Football is easy to understand and explain.

Baseball isn’t.

The NFL occupies most of the American sports psyche and has since the 1980s. But, baseball is the more representative game. How many immigrants play football?

Baseball is great because anyone of any size or any skin color can play. For every Aaron Judge, there is a Jose Altuve. All you need is the physical tools to play. As a kid, you can dream of becoming that person, and if you have the talent you can.

Baseball is great because, with persistence and talent, you can make it. A friend of mine had a son who spent ten years in the minors before making the big league. He spent ten years in the bigs. Football’s average career is around 2-3 years and you have to be a physical freak to make it.

Baseball is great because every spring, like American ethos and culture, there is hope. There is always hope until you are mathematically eliminated unless you are a Chicago White Sox fan.

Baseball is great because as a kid, you learn math, probability, and statistics. Those are important tools to understand to succeed in life.

I am a Chicago Cubs fan and alas, they aren’t in the mix this year. I am not rooting for anyone except I am pulling for any team that is playing the Yankees and Dodgers. The Dodgers because they pulled a fast one on the league with the way they signed players. Maybe next year for the Cubs. They have a good young core.

Have you ever played catch with a pro baseball player? I have. Their zip on the ball is just different. I played catch with Kirby Puckett when we were in junior college together. His arm was different.

A couple of guys I went to college with at Illinois were great baseball players. One had a brother who played for years in the majors and managed. He had played his first two years and gave it up to study to become a doctor which he is today. The other’s father played in the majors. When they threw the ball around it zinged a lot different than the one I threw. The pop in the glove sounded different.

One time a neighbor of mine had a catching glove out. He told me to go 60 feet 6 inches down the street. He said, “I am going to throw to you at 3/4 speed. Don’t move the mitt. Here comes a curveball.”

The ball went out over the parkway and spun right back into the mitt. I didn’t move it. He kept doing this over and over. He wasn’t on a mound. We were just in the street.

This guy had played on the US national team, had all the pitching records at his D1 college, and made it to Triple-A of the bigs. “I couldn’t throw a 3-2 curveball or slider for a strike that guys couldn’t hit so I didn’t make it.”, he relayed to me. “I didn’t have the heater.”

Baseball is like America because it has no time limits. Games can go on forever. The only limits are three outs and nine innings.

It is the American game. Strategy can be all over the place. There are norms for setting batting orders but you can break norms too. There is stealing signs, stealing bases, lip reading, and trying to get a leg up on your opponent.

Statistical analysis has overwhelmed the game, but a gut feeling still exists.

Baseball incorporates the capitalistic concept of risk-reward all the time. Should you take the extra base, or not?

One of baseball's most amazing things is that the pitcher’s mound is 60’6” and hasn’t changed in over 100 years. They got it right immediately. Bases are still the same distance from each other, though they made the bags larger this year. The baseball itself is the same size too, though they change the inside every once and a while.

I watched a special on pitching speed and who threw the hardest once. Physics professors analyzed data on pitchers throughout pro baseball history. Nolan Ryan was the fastest, but Walter Johnson was almost as fast, and Bob Feller missed by a whisker.

Babe Ruth could play today. Would he be the same? Probably not since the strategy around the game has changed but I bet he’d be pretty great. Ted Williams would still be an unbelievable hitter. Virtually all the greats of the past would be able to play today. Would anyone not want Bob Gibson on the mound in a Game 7?

There are things I don’t like about today’s baseball but they are window dressing. I think the Nike uniforms look absolutely horrible. They look cheap, and the way the fabric hangs looks terrible. I don’t dig all the advertising on batting helmets and uniforms but realize it’s a big-money game and it is a necessary evil.

Do yourself a favor and turn off the incessant football of the next few weeks and turn on the baseball playoffs. They just hit differently than the regular season. Much more drama and excitement because of the finality of it all. With the pitch clock, games move faster.

Field of Dreams is a wonderful movie but of course, the most wonderful thing about it is when the father and son have a catch.

You can’t do that with football.