I don’t know if you’ve noticed the warmer weather lately.
The other day, I noticed those dark green sprigs sprouting in my lawn. They’re weeds, not grass, but I like them because they’re the first signs of growth in months and an early indication that we’re entering the best season of the year.
The recent time change means longer days.
At church, we’re excitedly anticipating Easter.
The oppression of winter is ending.
And, of course, the sound of bats cracking and mitts popping means only one thing — the greatest sports season of the year is about to begin.
I’m aware that my opinion about baseball is not widely shared. I’ve lived in the Bluegrass State for two decades. Basketball reigns here, and I understand why. Basketball is a great sport. But basketball ain’t baseball, and neither is football. Baseball stands alone atop the hierarchy of greatest sports ever played under the sun. You’re free to disagree, but at least listen to my arguments.
Baseball reigns because baseball keeps time differently. Consider this ... every other major team sport focuses our attention on a clock. When the clock hits zero, or strangely in soccer, reaches 90 minutes plus the arbitrary stoppage time that the referee added, the game is over. These sports continue a totalitarianism that plagues our daily lives. We’re always up against the clock, rushing about to arrive on time. We worry ourselves silly over appointments and obligations. And what do we do when we want a break from the tyranny of time? We follow sports with a running clock. It just doesn’t make sense.
Don’t you want a break from the tyranny? Wouldn’t you enjoy something in your life where you don’t have to worry about running out of time?
Baseball measures time by outs and innings. The game isn’t over until each team has run through all 27 of its allotted outs, evenly spread over nine innings. A game of baseball could hypothetically last forever, and I don’t think I would mind if one did. The game is played at a leisurely pace. The baseball field offers its participants and fans a peaceful refuge amid the chaos of the clock. Come on in, take a seat and grab a hot dog and a Coke. No one is rushing anyone here, except for those cursed pitch clocks, but we’ll just ignore those for now.
Baseball reigns because baseball values the past. C. S. Lewis once lamented what he called chronological snobbery. He despised the way his own generation viewed anything old as out-of-date and gave preference to the new. This tendency to discredit the ancient and salivate over the modern certainly has not abated despite Lewis’s best efforts over half a century ago.
When we lose the past, however, we lose perspective. Not knowing the future, the past is our only recourse for critiquing the nonsense of the present. The past provides access to sources of wisdom that we desperately need.
Baseball is called America’s Pastime, and history is uniquely important to its rhythms. Sometimes, when I’m watching a game on TV with my wife, she will laugh at the obscure stats rolling off the commentator’s tongue, such as, “That was only the third time since 1938 that a left-handed pitcher has struck out the side in an inning of a game that was his third consecutive outing.” But stats are important in baseball because they provide a way to compare players across every era. Some stats are likely never to be broken, like Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive-games-played streak. Others, like Hank Aaron’s homerun record, would still stand if not for the steroid era.
Baseball values its history like no other sport. Once per year, all players wear Jackie Robinson’s number 42, the one number universally retired in baseball. Robinson was the first Black player in Major League Baseball and heroically led the way to breaking down the color barrier, not only in baseball, but across culture.
Finally, baseball reigns because it uniquely champions human dignity. Unlike other sports, baseball celebrates the human being over the ball, for in baseball, runs are never tallied by the location of the ball but only when the baserunner makes it home. Scoring does not come through conquest but at the end of a long treacherous journey back home.
While single players may dominate other sports, taking over the game through act of will, baseball always requires significant contributions from every player on the field. Even when a pitcher pitches a perfect game, his team’s success depends on his catcher, his defense behind him and his offense scoring runs. There is no single physical attribute that all baseball players share. Baseball players come in all shapes and sizes and bring diverse skills to their team.
Aren’t you ready for some baseball?