162 Games

After a brief break from blog life, I have returned to wax poetic on the subject of my favorite sport -- baseball. This post is dedicated to the Atlanta Braves and all the outfielders I have loved before: Claudell Washington, Marquis Grissom, Andruw Jones, Otis Nixon, Jason Heyward and one infielder: Ron Gant.

Since I am a list maker and can't break myself of the habit, I have organized my thoughts into a list I'll call  Why Baseball Is the Best Sport Ever
1. Constancy: baseball has been played in the U.S. for about 150 years and there are 162 games in the regular season. I look forward to baseball opening day every year and the games are a constant presence in my life from April through September every year, day in and day out.
2. Infinite: You play until someone wins. There are no ties in baseball; you just add extra innings until someone scores. I also like that innings have no time limits. It could be a short 7-minute inning with 9 strikes called or the inning could last an hour with everyone in the batting order batting twice. You never know how long a game will take and much depends on the type of pitchers for that game.
3. Errors: that's right -- in baseball there are errors and if you mess up badly enough, that statistic will stay with you into baseball eternity. Balls are dropped, catches are missed, plays are mishandled. I like that an unseen judge, the official scorer, must keep track of what went right and what went wrong. What if there were error statistics kept for those of us in business and law? What if there was an official scorer to tell you that the decision you made with your kid was an official error? At least you would know where you stand. Baseball carries an ideal of perfection. Pitchers pitch "perfect" games and the best fielders don't make many errors.
4. No instant replay: with a very limited exception of reviewing home run calls, Major League Baseball has resisted the siren's song of instant replay. Umpires must make decisions on the spot without pauses to consult tv screens. Do bad calls get made? Sure, but all teams are disadvantaged equally and MLB umpires have a lot of training before they go out on the field. There are no do-overs, even when an umpire causes a pitcher to lose out on a perfect game with a bad call. You just have to apologize (or not) and move on.
5. Language: I like the phrases that are particular to baseball: "safe at home", the "little looper into right", the "pop up", he "flied out" (not "flew" out).
6. Baseball movies: in the offseason, you can watch The Natural, The Rookie, Bull Durham, Sugar, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, A League of their Own, and Major League to remind you that baseball is the greatest sport.

So if this list doesn't convince you that baseball is the greatest game ever played, I suggest you watch the video of Sid Bream's slide (the slowest guy in baseball) in the 7th game of the 1992 NLCS and see if that doesn't put a smile on your face, even if you aren't from Atlanta.  Braves win!!!  Braves win!!! Braves win!!!!