The World Needs More Baseball

The world of baseball. Literally.

I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with baseball. It’s one of the best and most fun games to play but in order to quantify the reaction you get from watching it, you first need to contextualize the scenario. Translated: baseball can be one of the most unbearable sports to watch but strangely, also one of the best. It all depends on what’s at stake.

Watching a pitching change occur or seeing a pinch hitter substituted in game 54 of a 162 game season is excruciating but if the same situation happens in the playoffs it becomes Much Watch TV of the highest order.

Baseball is like a fast-moving chess match where every move and counter move is either strategically-vital or instantly problematic.

Baseball culture is a little different.

This part of the sport is the most magical but ironically also the most annoying. Few “action” sports have more downtime than baseball and historically this downtime created a fixation on stats and matchups and data-driven strategy.

Running the numbers says that Player A is not a great hitter against left handers so they pinch hit him with a substitute who can theoretically fare better in this particular matchup.

Of course things don’t always go as planned. This is where my frustration with the game and its penchant for overwrought data analysis begins. By my calculations any player should be good enough to hit against anybody given that he’s already overcome the greatest of odds by simply making it to major league baseball.

Somewhere along the way he was good enough to collect a hit against the best pitchers at that level so, as far as I’m concerned, he likely still has some ability to do it as a professional as well.

Running the numbers. Perhaps gambling (unsubstantiated)

This might be an oversimplification but my theory could prove to be right as many times as it could be wrong, and therein lies the magic of baseball.

It’s most certainly a sport but also one that relies on intellectuality as much as it relies on brawn, although, to be fair, baseball has never been a sport based on pure physicality. It’s a game which finds its center in that elusive space between skill, strategy and athleticism. In that sense, it’s unlike any sport out there.

This is not to say that football, hockey, soccer and basketball aren’t strategic. It’s just that their strategies play out more in real time. Those sports are more about actual on-field execution whereas baseball is more about the planning. When a strategy fails in hockey it’s most likely because the players didn’t follow the plan, while failure in baseball is more about having chosen the wrong strategy in the first place.

AI really doesn't get proportion very well, or the guy's just HUGE!

Herein lies my irritation with the game of baseball. That fixation on the data part. The overthinking part. “Just play the damn game” I’ve often said. Football players - and all of the other athletes from the “action” sports - just play the game while baseball players seem to do a whole lot of pondering. At least their managers do.

The key point here though, is that the cerebral nature of the game and its contemplative elements are actually what make the sport so engaging. The emphasis on matchups and tendencies and percentages are as alluring to the fans as the on-field action is.

You don’t just watch baseball for its athleticism, you watch it for the scheming. With other sports we relate more to the soldiers but with baseball we’re more the generals.

You only need to think of the postgame chatter for proof of that. Most sports focus on the lack of execution but baseball always question its tactics. Was Player A being pulled from the game a good move? Why did you send the runner on that play?

I asked AI for a press conference image and this is what I got...

Baseball is rife with What Ifs and in a world of brutish, physical sports - which, trust me, also have their place - baseball is for the thinking person. Watching it intently exercises different muscles within you, although it’s evident that these aren’t muscles at all. It's not ultimately better or worse, just different enough to feel different.

Baseball forces us to be less reactive and impulsive. It demands contemplation and opens our analytical minds. It’s a game that runs totally incongruent to a lot of the modern world which is why it’s had its struggles in trying to appeal to younger fans and if the keepers of baseball are smart, they’ll speed a lot less time on trying to speed up the game and a lot more time in trying to entice its audience to slow down just a little.

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This is The End.