Comments on: my first baseball game

By: Tihhany

Tihhany — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 03:56:33 +0000

the game is good

By: Dada

Dada — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Baseball doesn’t have the tactical appeal of football or the motion of basketball, bu there are skills involved. Pitching and hitting, in particular, are very complex and require a very different skill set.

There is a poetry in it, though.

Maybe if you come through town, we can catch a game at Wrigley. Or you can try and catch the Red Sox at Fenway. Those are great old parks.

By: Dada

Dada — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

By the way, I didn’t lose my baseball cherry until the age of 24, so don’t feel too bad. Of course, you’ve lived in both Boston and in the Bay Area, where baseball is the sport of choice. So you have far less of an excuse than I.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let's clarify. I called the end of game time down to the second, as Ginter caught the ball for the final out just as the stadium clocked clicked over to 9:30. (Okay, fine, the clock didn't click or flip... digital clocks don't do that.) Also, it may have taken quite some time, but I feel a small victory in last night.

By: The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

By comparison with other sports, baseball is a dusty game: one learns that in childhood when the field is more often new mown hay than actual lawn grass, much less astro-turf. This dust is a metaphor for “the pace of the game.” Folks who watch can sit back and discuss what is happening and why, have time to contemplate one another’s responses…actually have a conversation (I suppose that is what Stephen King was doing with his partner last season as they took notes for their book project: thinking, talking, taking notes, contemplating.) ~ It is the only game I have ever loved outside the true and traditional fieldwork — hunting, fishing, trapping — but then, they are not play. ~ And there is another thing reliable about baseball that is not, I think, true of football, basketball, and the like: the musical sighs of crowd delight and dismay. It comes in waves as matters proceed, carrying in full the heaves, the depths and heights of human emotion that compare favorably against, for instance, the incessant clattering echo of a basketball game. However, to compare these matters is probably not … mindful: they each have there place in kind with the site, scene, nature, of the event and chemistry of the players and spectators. Still, there you have it: something for each, something for all, like church ~ each congregant “owns” his or her own, and if s/he is wont to move along…well, then there is another just down the street or around the corner. From dust, to dust.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

First, I have to say to The Good Doctor and Dada that your observations on baseball are beautiful. The poetry, the metaphors…. just beautiful.

My two cents: In addition to the things the above-referenced commenters said more eloquently than I could hope to, I think baseball is a game of teamwork which seems to lead to a bit more class.

I try to picture “glory” for each sport.

Glory in football is a touchdown dance–rubbing failure in the face of the defense and celebrating a single person’s talent.

Glory in basketball is hanging off the rim after a breakaway slam. Again, a single person is putting himself in the spotlight for his achievement.

Glory in baseball is someone hitting a homerun and leaping into a crowd of his teammates at home plate. Yes, it was a single person’s achievement, but it ends with the team.

My opinion could be tainted. I’ve played on more than 15 softball teams but only three basketball teams and one non-competitive flag football team. But baseball’s slower pace is certainly overshadowed by its more meaningful qualities, in my opinion.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey… didn’t I give this entry another trackback for my “Things I’m Too Lazy to Post About” entry? Where did that go?

By: Colossus of Rhode

Colossus of Rhode — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oakland 5, New York Mets 0

Once again, I fudged the date on this one to make it look like I wrote it in a timely fashion. Once again, I apologize for my dishonesty. This was the second of my California games. While the hometeam Athletics…

By: Colossus of Rhode

Colossus of Rhode — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oakland 5, New York Mets 0

By: Colossus of Rhode

Colossus of Rhode — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Things I have been too lazy to post about

In the past three days I have seen two baseball games at two stadiums I had never been to before, SBC Park in San Francisco and the Coliseum across the bay in Oakland. San Francisco lost their game to the…