[Dean's World] Andrew Cory: Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjacks!

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Posted by Andrew Cory:
Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjacks!
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1152696966.shtml


   The very cool [1]Afaeyremaede took me out to a ball game this weekend.
   I had forgotten how much I enjoy that game. It didnât hurt at all that
   my team (the [2]Oakland Athletics) were playing the team I most
   despise (any team from south of Fresno). And even though the Good Guys
   in Green lost, I was still able to walk away with a smile...

   Baseball is a game of yards in which all the important measurements
   are done with centimeters. It is this quality which leads to the
   improbable statement that âbaseball is boringâ. Itâs trueâif frenetic
   motion is the only measure of excitement a fan can understand baseball
   has very little to offer. Any pitcher can hurl a ball faster than a
   young athlete can force a Ferrari; putting it within a dimeâs diameter
   of where he wants it requires the skill which allows him to only get
   community service for trying...

   Pitcher battles batter ninety, or a hundred or more times. All the
   while the pitcher gets more tired, less able to put the ball where he
   wants it. He begins to give into the temptation of simply letting the
   ball go forward down its most predictable arc...

   Batter battles pitcherâCasey stands ever ready. Perhaps this will
   prove more explicable to baseball foes. The difference between a game
   winning home run and a game losing pop fly is less than a single
   inchâa half an inch before the ball is even released. The entire less
   than one second the batter has for the ball to travel 726 inches is
   eaten up in hauling the bat into position. Imagine pool played out at
   85 miles an hour! It seems remarkable that batters are ever able to
   connect by more than accident...

   And then a rally gets going. These are the rare moments of
   electricity. The pitcher throws a rock and the batter is all over it
   with paper. The next batter chooses sees paper forming in the
   pitcherâs mind and so brings forth scissors. The pitcher has now been
   dominated; both the bat and ball are now instruments of the batterâs
   will. The pitcher tries to shake himself out of it, slam his
   algorithms into new pathways. He canât take too long between pitches,
   thoughâthe runners might decide to advance themselves. The pitcher
   either gets himself out of it, or is replaced by someone who hasnât
   been owned by the opposition...

   Baseball plays itself out in small increments. On any given pitch any
   given outcome might occur. It may notâand probably wonât. Over the
   course of an entire game, though, it will. When that happens it is
   because everything was in simple and perfect alignment. Few things in
   life are more beautiful than watching everything work out perfectly...

References

   1. http://afaeyremaede.blogspot.com/
   2. http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp?c_id=oak