Baseball is a slow burn

[Continued from comments on previous post] As for the baseball/basketball argument, I agree that basketball is more fluid and athletic (although you don’t think playing 150 games at catcher requires some serious endurance?). Whether that corresponds to basketball being a better sport is another question. Certainly it is silly just to name two sports which emphasize different skills sets and appeal to different types of viewers, and try to decide which is "better." This is clearly a matter of preference.

However, I think the appeal of both sports can be communicated. Not to take anything away from the frenetic pace and short-attention span appeal of basketball, which can of course be glorious, baseball is a sport that requires patience and diligence to reap its many benefits.

I like two things primarily about baseball (not including the incredible nostalgia involved in things like the voice of Vin Scully). The first thing I learned to love about baseball was the numbers. When you follow entire games on a scorecard, you quickly grasp how everything can be quantified. Yes, there are numbers in every sport, but in baseball every position on the field has a number, every play can be reduced to numbers, and every interaction between ball and bat has a statistic. Every year that goes by some nerd comes up with a new number that is supposed to be the end-all for judging performance. I like the accumulation of statistics over the entire season (and equally, over entire careers)- home run races, batting averages, strikeouts – much more than I like the individual games (at least until the playoffs).

And there is no doubt that individual, regular season baseball games are less important than basketball games. This is inevitable when the teams play twice as many games over a half-year. Each game is much less important than the slow accumulation of wins over a season. But this is another reason that baseball is glorious. In baseball failure is emphasized (and normalized) over individual achievement. The human element in victory is diminished. A good hitter gets retired 7 out of 10 times; a three-run lead is generally very difficult to overcome; you can only use your best pitcher 1 out of every 5 games; weather can cancel your game at most ballparks; a batter hits the same pitch with the same force two times and it’s a home run in one stadium and a fly-out in another; a great team can win 85% of basketball games – no more than 65% for a great baseball team.

The reason this appeals to me is twofold – to a pessimist, baseball looks a lot more like life; and when individual achievement does occur, it is spectacular and unusual (how many planets had to align for Albert Pujols to hit his game winning three-run homer in the NLCS this year? – how much more often does Kobe have an opportunity to win a game with a jumper?)

Also, although money always has the potential to ruin baseball (see: NY Yankees), this season proved that the highest payroll can’t guarantee victory every year. And a baseball game is still affordable for a family of five.

But again, these are all matters of preference. The things I like about baseball are subtle. A baseball game is like a Hitchcock movie, and a basketball game is like a Wes Craven flick. Of course Wes will make you scream louder at first, but sometimes the Hitchcock will keep you up at night.