I’ve been a baseball fan for about as long as I can remember.
I guess I have my father to thank for that. My sister and I lived here in the Boston area
growing up, but my father and stepmom lived in Baltimore, and when we were
young, we spent part of our summers down there.
This always meant a few trips to Memorial Stadium to see the Orioles
play. So, I grew up watching some pretty fine ball players. To this day, I consider Paul Blair one of the
best defensive outfielders to ever play the game, and Mark Belanger one of the finest
shortstops. Oh yeah, and who was that
third baseman? Right, some guy named
Brooks Robinson.
As I got older, I grew into a fanatical Red Sox fan - an easy thing to
do, living here. I was in college in
1975, and on the staff of the school newspaper.
The building where we published the paper was in Kenmore Square, not far
from Fenway Park. We’d get together on
Sundays to put the paper together, and if there was a game, we could hear the
crowd cheering as we worked. That World
Series still ranks as one of my all time biggest thrills.
After the Sox traded away most of my favorite players after the 1978
season (I still have a handwritten letter from Bill Lee, scribbled on hotel
stationary from a road trip to Cleveland), I turned my allegiance to the Kansas
City Royals. Their third baseman, George
Brett (who wore number 5 specifically because of his worship of the
afore-mentioned Mr. Robinson), was one of the game’s rising young stars at the
time, and the rest of the team was just as impressive. Frank White played brilliant second base, and
Hal McRae was one of the league’s premier Designated Hitters. A pitching staff that included Paul
Splittorff and Dennis Leonard. Veteran
catcher Darrell Porter. The Royals were
a great mix of young up and comers and guys who’d been around. But it was George Brett who became my
favorite player, a gritty, tough guy who never minded getting his uniform
dirty. He played 20 seasons, all of them
with the Royals, and in 1980, he spent the entire season flirting with a .400
batting average, ending the season at a pretty damned impressive .390. He’s still my all time favorite, and one of
the best hitters I’ve ever seen.
Sometime around 1989, Mike and I started a Rotisserie Baseball league
with some friends. This was in the days
before everyone had a computer. I
remember spending one day a week at work on my lunch break, in the lunch room with
paper, pen, The Sporting News and a calculator, doing the stats for our
league. At some point, we “graduated” to
an old Radio Shack computer Mike’s parents gave us. It came with a printer – you know, the kind
with that paper with the perforations on the sides? It made doing the stats easier, but I can’t
even imagine what a cakewalk it must be to do something like that with today’s
technology!
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| Cover of 1991 Bad Hops yearbook (now a collector's item, and extremely rare). |
Of course, with today’s iMacs and laptops, Photoshop and the like, the
world also would have been deprived of the yearbook I made one season for my
team. The Bad Hops yearbook included
such gems as a photo of the Owner/President/General Manager (that would be me) and our manager (the late Ken
Brett, George’s older brother and a decent pitcher in his day) planning
strategy together, thanks to a pair of scissors and a copier. As was the case in all other photos of me
that appeared in the yearbook, I was inexplicably dressed in my wedding dress,
with the same baby’s breath in my hair that I wore for my wedding. Odd, until you realize that the wallet size
wedding photo I happened to have extras of was the perfect size for cutting out
my smiling face and gluing it to the body standing next to Ken, or whoever else
I might wish to be seen strategizing with.
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| Note the stylish "Bad Hops" jerseys. |
To this day, I can’t help but laugh when I think about the photo of
Nolan Ryan’s family I had in my yearbook, with the head of Dave Winfield (an
outfielder for the Bad Hops that season) cut out and glued on top of
Ryan’s. The caption? “Outfielder Dave Winfield spends time with
the family of Nolan Ryan.”
Fun times.
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| My most entertaining yearbook entry. |
One thing that rose out of the ashes of our league was my new team
allegiance. All of my favorite Royals
players were long gone, and I couldn’t help but notice that, in every draft, I
seemed to pick up more and more Yankees players. And one thing I can tell you, if you’ve never
played in a Rotisserie league, is that, when you do, you tend to follow only "your" players. So, after the last out of
the last season of our league, I sort of naturally evolved into something
people in these parts don’t particularly cherish – a Yankees fan. Which I remain, to this day. As painful as it is to admit to such a thing,
after the horrific season we just endured.
I consider myself a Patriots fan, and watch most of their games. I’ve even been known to watch the Celtics or
Bruins, but only during the post-season.
So, as you can see, baseball is definitely #1 for me.
Which can only mean one thing.
It’s time for me to give you five good reasons why baseball is the best
sport.
1. There is No Time Clock
In every other major sport in this country, most of the strategizing
centers on use of the time clock. (Ask
the Saints, after what Tom Brady did to them last weekend.) But you know what? In baseball there IS no time clock! A baseball game can last two hours, or it can
last so long, it has to be suspended for the night and resumed the following
day. A regulation baseball game is nine
innings. But, if you’re the home team,
and you’re leading in the game after the visiting team bats in the top of the
ninth, the game only lasts 8½ innings.
If the score is tied after nine complete innings, then the teams keep
playing. I’ve seen games that have gone
more than 20 innings. When the game
starts, there is absolutely no way to accurately predict exactly what time it’s
going to end. And how great is that?
2. Baseball is For Normal Size
People
For the most part, major league baseball players are the same size and
build as your friend at work, or the guy who lives next door. Freddie Patek, the three-time All Star
shortstop who played most of his 13-year career with the Royals, was 5’5” tall
and weighed 148 pounds. Except for the
homerun sluggers, most baseball players rely more on speed and agility than
they do on size or strength. I am
convinced that if women are ever going to break the sex barrier in a major
league sport, it will be in baseball. I
don’t see a reason in the world why a talented female athlete would not be able
to compete against male baseball players.
And wouldn’t that be an exciting thing to see!
3. The Rich History
More than any other sport, baseball has a history rich in eccentric
characters, tragic figures, heroes, villains, you name it. Mark Fidrych, a pitcher for the Detroit
Tigers back in the late ‘70’s, used to talk to the ball before he threw
it. Tony Conigliaro, a talented young
Red Sox outfielder, was hit in the eye by a pitch, and was never the same
player again. In his late 30’s, he
suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, eventually passing away at age
45. Roberto Clemente, the amazingly
talented Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, died at 38 in a plane crash on his way
to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Alex Rodriguez…as I said, I
am a Yankees fan. I’d just as soon not
even talk about Alex Rodriguez. But, as
I said, baseball has its villains.
But, the point is, even if they’re not a baseball fan, most people know
who Babe Ruth is. They know who Mickey
Mantle is. They know who Joe DiMaggio
is. Baseball, more than any other sport,
transcends demographics. On the other
hand, I heard Howard Stern on the radio today actually refer to Patriots
quarterback Tom Brady as “Giselle’s husband.”
He didn’t know his name, a name that is as familiar to New Englanders as
that of the President.
4. It’s Played In (Relatively) Nice
Weather
Basketball and hockey are played indoors. Football is played in any type of weather,
even heavy snow. But the baseball season starts in early April, just as the
weather is starting to get nice (here on the East Coast, that is, so hold your
commentary, Dodgers fans!). Those early
games at Fenway can turn pretty chilly once it gets past 6:00. The season then extends into the “dog days”
of summer, finally wrapping up in early fall, just as it starts to get chilly
again. And it’s played, for the most
part, outdoors, in the fresh air, with the smell of hot dogs wafting through
the air. You can’t beat that!
5. Baseball is Beautiful
Don’t laugh. Baseball is
beautiful, and it’s beautiful in so many different ways.
Every single year, as I walk up into the seating area at Fenway and see
the field for the first time, I tear up.
The sight of the perfect diamond, with the emerald green grass perfectly
manicured around it, is just such a perfect image. It represents childhood, and Americana, and
all sorts of things that cynics like me tend to disregard much of the
time. But for those few hours, it all
makes sense.
Baseball is beautifully logical.
There are always three strikes for a strikeout, and four balls for a
walk. There are always three outs for
each team in an inning. A leftie will be
called in to get a lefthanded slugger out in the bottom of the ninth with
runners on base. The kid who’s been stealing bases like crazy will be called in
to run for the veteran outfielder in a close game.
Baseball is physically beautiful to watch. The windup of a pitcher, the swing of a truly
great hitter, is a thing of such exquisite perfection, it can take your breath
away. And the “homerun trot?” Magical.
The Red Sox are playing tonight.
I promised my best friend, who has been through some rough times
recently, that I’d root for them to get to the World Series, and tonight could
be the night. It’s proving to be easier
than I thought it would be – but don’t despair, come April, it’s the boys in
pinstripes who’ll once again have my heart.
The Sox broke it one too many times for me to ever trust them again.
That being said, Game Six of the 1975 World Series will always be one of
my all-time best memories, and will always make me cry.
That’s just the way baseball works.
