A whole new ball game – The start of a journey
So, here’s the thing….I was trying to decide what I’d do during the gap between the last game of the Stanley Cup and the start of the new NHL season in October. Then it came to me, like a fastball to the head: make a concentrated effort to actually like baseball. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against it but I have never really tried to become a “fan” of the sport. My knowledge of the sport really, ashamedly, comes from movies such as ‘Major League’ and ‘Field of Dreams’.
My feeling about baseball is that it’s a pitchers game and hitting the ball isn’t awfully easy to do. Consequentially, the viewing of a ballgame consists of the ball constantly thundering into the mitt of the catcher or slicing off the bat into the crowd in an amazing array of curves and acute angles. It also seems to go on for ages, as teams aimlessly waft at high speed balls, until the 9th innings has come and gone. However, George Bernard Shaw commented that “baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended” so I’m prepared to be argued against on that point.
The rebuttal to this theory seems to be when the bases are loaded and the batter connects with a ball and launches it in the general direction of the Mexican border. The scoring team jog round from their bases with a new found smugness whilst the pitcher looks around for a sharp object to end his misery. I’m not sure whether the mandatory camera pan to the pitchers bullpen is entirely needed as it feels like we are all impinging on his grief.
The one thing that has always interested me about baseball is the plethora of statistics that are generated. The accountant in me loves this and wants to revel in RBI’s, ERA, OBP and other abbreviations that I have no clue about whatsoever. Statistics, of course, don’t tell the full story but are really good indicators as to how bad the Houston Astros were last season. Any team that loses 50 games at home isn’t going to have fantastic stats!
The timing of my decision is great as pre-season is in full swing with the fantastically named Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. It seems a little strange to have a competition before the season starts but I’ll run with it because it means I can watch some games in readiness for the regular season. To do this, I have invested in MLB.TV so there is no excuse not to catch a load of games and get to know the finer points of the game, its teams and the players. I’ve also got the ‘At Bat’ app on my iPhone so MLB is just a finger swipe away!
So, my journey through the 2012 season has begun. By the end of the World Series, I’m hoping that I’m a baseball addict and hope you’ll join me on the journey. Think I’ve got everything I need. Oh, wait! I need to find a team to follow….