The Essays of Sam Person
Baseball - American and Unique
.....© 2000 By Samuel Person
Soon, spring will be in the air. Of this we can be sure since "spring training" for professional baseball will begin in two weeks. This annual rebirth of hope will trigger the anticipation that this is the "next year" that has been eagerly awaited.
People who are not fans will say "So what?" of course. But, baseball is the quintessential American game, and may be more an institution than a sport. As such, even those among us who are not baseball fans nevertheless can tell you when Lou Gerhig made his famous farewell speech, or against whom Willie Mays made "The Catch," or indeed (with thanks to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello), "Who s On First."
Baseball s hold on Americans is so strong that often there is an immediate association with the game and occasions in one s life. Thus, I can tell you reflexively that I was in the United States Air Force in Denver, Colorado, the October afternoon in 1951 that Bobby Thomson hit the "home run heard around the world," and won the National League pennant for the New York Giants in a playoff game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Fan interest in performance statistics applies to baseball as to no other sport because of the constancy of the game, its gloried history, and its impact on every aspect of American life. Indeed, no less a literary luminary than Jacques Barzun wrote, To know America, you must first know baseball."
Celebrated writers and commentators on the American scene, including Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, Bernard Malamud, and George Will, among others, explore baseball in addition to their other interests. It is abundantly clear that they are fans, so much so that George Will gives the impression that he might well have preferred being a baseball player than a political columnist.
How much does baseball mean to America, and America to baseball? And what is the influence of the one on the other? Baseball discriminated against blacks for decades of that there is no argument. But, when Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson opened the game, and righted the wrongs, it is my view that they did more to enhance the civil rights movement in our country than any single event other than President Harry Truman s integration of the Armed Forces by Executive Order.
Baseball "purists" appreciate that the game is far more cerebral than any other sport. There is the game within the game; i.e, holding the runner on base, advancing the runner, intentionally walking a respected hitter, matching pitchers up against hitters, throwing to the cutoff man, keeping the hitter "loose" at the plate, and many other little things that make the game what it is. No other sport has this high degree of strategy underlying the action.
People who do not appreciate baseball will tell us that the game is too slow; they know not whereof they speak. Among this group are those who view football as an action filled game compared to baseball, which is simply not true. The actual time players are in "action" in football on any given play is less than four seconds! In baseball, the action continues where there is seemingly no action. In football, a play is called, and executed. Period, that s it, and it is over in less than four seconds! In football, the total number of plays executed by both teams in one game is far less than the number of individual decisions made by baseball players in a single game. Do a time and motion study and see for yourself.
Without question, professional basketball is the most physically challenging of all sports, and professional basketball players are gifted, talented, and graceful athletes. And while the athleticism of professional basketball players (as well as wide receivers in professional football) is something to marvel at, professional baseball players are not slouches by any means. To me, the most graceful exercise in all of professional sports is a well executed double play from "short to second to first," which often is pure ballet.
Anybody who has seen Michael Jordan in action will attest to his grace and ability. Ironically enough, however, his very greatness is another sign of what separates baseball from the other sports. A player like Michael Jordan, by sheer dint of his will and ability, can lead a team to championships; after all, there are only five players on the basketball floor at any time. Further, in football and/or hockey, one team can impose its will on another because of the sheer physical aspects of the game: just go out and hit somebody. This is not so in baseball.
In baseball, effectively, a team and the game itself changes every day, and on occasion, several times within a day. This is so because of the pitching aspect of baseball, which, to be sure, dominates the action, i.e., "good pitching stops good hitting." When a pitching change is made, it is as if the team itself changes; styles differ from pitcher to pitcher, and batters must react to these changes. By contrast, in the other organized team sports, the teams are constant, i.e., there is only one quarterback in football.
"Momentum" is said to turn to the side of a winning team. While this may well be in other sports, it is not true in baseball; because the pitcher changes, as I have noted, momentum is less a factor.
Picture also that while other sports are "sprints" or "middle distance" events, baseball is a marathon, a relentless grind. In professional football, a team plays no more than sixteen to twenty games, depending on whether or not it makes the championship rounds. While in basketball and hockey, there are more games than in football, it remains that baseball teams play a substantially larger schedule. The fact is that a championship team in baseball may lose approximately sixty times in a season, which is a staggering thought!
Let us also examine the level of difficulty, as it were. As such, there is nothing more difficult in any sport than hitting a round object thrown at speeds approaching one hundred miles per hour with another round object! Baseball is therefore a game that invites failure! If a batter hits safely one-third of the time throughout his career, on the one hand he has failed, but on the other, he is on the way to a) making a lot of money, and b) earning a place in baseball s Hall of Fame.
Other factors contribute to what makes baseball different. For example, unlike other sports, there is effectively no time dimension. Play continues until there is a winner, after giving the "home team" its last turn at bat. Whoever invented the game of baseball defined a perfect set of distances between bases. To appreciate these parameters, observe how often even the speediest of runners is "out by an eyelash" running from base to base, particularly from home to first. This degree of refined precision does not exist in any other sport; in football, a running back may always slip a tackle, a basketball player bringing a ball down court can always "fake out" his opponent. Only in baseball is there the fixed sense of going from here to there.
Perfection (or even near perfection) is not easy to achieve in baseball. The last time a hitter had a batting average higher than .400 (i.e., 40%) was Ted Williams in 1941. In effect, this great star failed 60% of the time! Similarly, in all the annals of the game, there have been only twenty occasions (approximately) on which a pitcher prevented every hitter from reaching base! Contrast these numbers with the shooting percentages of basketball players, and the pass completion percentages of quarterbacks, etc.
Followers of other sports may well contradict me, and argue that baseball is not the great sport that I envision. Certainly, hockey, basketball and/or football fans are dedicated, and even those who consider professional wrestling with a straight face are numerous. But, baseball stands alone, and has, for decades.
