"boring" is probably the #1 complaint of non-baseball fans about the game of baseball. The standard counter-argument -- and it's a good one -- is that there is much to enjoy about the non-action periods of a game. The positioning of fielders, the psychological drama of pitcher vs. batter, the strategizing, the fact that the defense puts the ball into play on its own schedule, the fact that somehow the game has evolved perfectly so that a runner with just big enough a lead to not get picked off first who starts running exactly when the pitcher goes into a delivery from the stretch will slide into second at almost exactly the moment that the ball can travel from pitcher's hand to catcher's mitt to catcher's hand to second baseman's glove, and so on. If you don't subscribe to this theory, and long for the exactly-as-long-gametime and exactly-as-many-moments-of-actual-action of the NFL, there's probably no way to change your mind. My point is only this: it's very hacky and boring to say that baseball is boring, because anyone who doesn't like baseball is going to say it's boring.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
QOTD
Ken T. properly defends the best of all sports at FireJoeMorgan.com:
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3 comments:
I like using statistics to illuminate events, and baseball does that best of all sports. I don't watch much, and most of the players are jerks I wouldn't want to spend time with.
I could not agree more. Calling baseball "boring" reflects a dislike for baseball. But it also reflects on that person's intellectual curiosity. For persons stimulated by amazingly complex physical and mental challenges that are won or lost by "inches" (or nanoseconds), baseball is anything but boring. And the hot dogs and cold beer ain't bad, either.
Ergo, to modify one famous quote, an "Education [in baseball] is man going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty."
Even after many years playing and watching baseball, I am still challenged (and excited) to figure out the greatest game.
-Cogito
Now if only you could convince the networks of the importance of what's happening when the ball isn't in play. I keep telling people who think baseball is boring that you can't judge it until you see it from the stands.
Most who agree to join me at the park warm up to baseball at least a little.
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