Baseball

I love baseball. Men everywhere love baseball. Baseball is not just the national pastime, it’s the male pastime. We can sit and watch baseball for hours at time, even if we have no interest in the teams that are playing. We will pay $29 for a ticket to watch our team in person. And next year, when ticket prices are raised again, what will we do? Pass me my $6 hot dog, because I’m still going. Why do we do this? It’s not because we agree with putting more money in the owner’s pocket, or because we think players deserve $20 million a year, but because we love the game.

What is it about baseball that appeals to us so much? There are certainly a lot of reasons, but for the most part I think I think it’s pretty simple. Baseball is simply ingrained into our culture. We’ve all grown up knowing who Babe Ruth and Cy Young were, and wholeheartedly buying into the whole baseball and apple pie picture of America. Also, baseball played major role in our childhoods. We all played tee ball, we all remember the day our dad brought home our first glove, and we all still have a shoe box full of baseball cards. Our obsession with the sport goes beyond mere nostalgia however. I think it has to do more with how baseball appeals to the dreamer in us all. Baseball highlights the individual player unlike any other sport and it offers more opportunities for greatness. There have been plenty of shutouts in football, but have you ever heard of a team holding the opposition to 0 offensive yards? It has never happened, but there have been 17 official perfect games in baseball history. No football player has ever snapped the ball to himself, thrown a pass, and then run under it for a touchdown. But there have been 13 unassisted triple plays in baseball. I believe this opportunity for individual greatness, even if only for a moment, is a large part of why we love the game.

As true as all this is, the primary reason that we love baseball is even more profound. Baseball reminds us of life. Baseball, like life, is very imperfect. Things never seem to go quite like we want them to, and the outcome can change in a heartbeat. The difference however, is that baseball is accepted as such. A hitter that manages to get 3 hits every 10 at bats is almost guaranteed to make it to the hall of fame. A field goal kicker that only made 3 out of 10 would be unemployed. What would our lives be like if the endless pursuit of perfection was gone, and it was accepted that a success rate of 30% numbered us among the very best. I think we would be much less stressed and as a result, happier and healthier. We relate to this imperfection. Baseball doesn’t so much imitate life as it idealizes what we wish life could be. Because no matter how imperfect a game you play on the field, and no matter how badly the game goes, you know you will always get your turn at bat. If only life was so simple.