For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a thing for baseball. I grew up in Cooperstown, also known as “The Home of Baseball.” However disputed the origins of the game actually are, enough people in a position to judge were sufficiently convinced of a very sketchy story to credit the town as the birthplace of baseball and to found the Baseball Hall of Fame there in 1939.
Growing up in Cooperstown, I was inundated by baseball year-round, but especially in the summer. The village’s population is normally around 2,000, but from June to September tourism swells the numbers to around twice that on any given day. On the weekend of inaugurations of retired players into the Hall of Fame, usually in early August, there are between 8,000 and 10,000 people in town.
Everywhere you look in Cooperstown, it’s baseball. Some kids I knew reacted by turning away, or even developing an active dislike for the game. Not I — no, no, not I. During my youth I spent hours and hours playing baseball, watching baseball, reading about baseball, collecting baseball cards, and playing baseball board games.
Over the years, my obsession with the game has waxed and waned and waxed again. Strangely, it took going to graduate school for me to figure out what it is that fascinates me about baseball.
The aesthetics of the game are part of it, but only part.
Barbara Manning titled one of her best albums One Perfect Green Blanket in homage to her favorite sports field. Looking down on a sight like this is reason enough for me to go to a game. I find the island of green in a sea of concrete very soothing. The symmetry of the infield suggests order, but to my eye it’s a loose, gentle order.
I finally realized at the age of 28 or so that the real draw for me is narrative. Baseball is the sport that most thrives on stories. Each season begins with the promises of Spring, of a clean slate, but the stories from seasons past linger and swirl. Will player X succeed with his new team, the archrival of his old team? Will player Y recover from the injuries that kept him out last year? Will the champs repeat? Will the Yankees’ star-studded roster crawl out from under the pressure generated by the greatest of expectations?
Throughout the course of the season, each team rises and falls in the standings as they cycle through good times and bad. Players are traded, called up from the minors, moved to another position, lose or re-gain their starting spots. Each move generates more stories and points of contact between older stories.
Beyond this, every game has a multiplicity of its own narratives, connecting with the larger ones of the season, players’ careers, and the overarching myths and legends of the sport. A novel could be written about just one at bat, a chapter on each pitch. Stories within stories within stories.
Baseball is the only sport I know that yields greater and deeper appreciation with prolonged study. I have come to realize that it is a glorious measure of both time and space.
Of course, there are also the game’s immediate, less-intellectual pleasures — a ball struck firmly and squarely, a stunning catch, a stolen base. And that’s not to mention the perfection of spending a lovely late Spring evening at the ballpark with friends, eating food, drinking beer, and sharing stories.
Interesting post, Tim. You bring up an intriguing point about being attracted to the narrative of baseball.
I realized some time ago that, while I wasn’t all that interested in watching sports, I did like reading the sports page since, basically, I’m also hooked into the narrative. (Incidentally, if I do watch a sporting event, I’d really rather just watch it on TV than see it live and in person). Because of this, I can tell you that the ace of the Dodgers’ pitching staff is Derek Lowe (unless you really think it’s Brad Penny, who’s off to a better start); that they picked up pitcher Jason Schmidt (a fomer Giant and former hated Dodger rival), center-fielder Juan Pierre, and left-fielder Luis Gonzalez in the off-season; and that the Dodgers have a 24-16 record right now.
I’m sort of embarrassed that I know all of that because, quite honestly, I don’t even really like baseball all that much… which brings us back to an attraction to the narrative, I guess…
(Anyway–does this mean you’re a Dodgers fan, Tim?)
Great post! I love baseball so much. It’s really the only sport I can watch (and understand). Everyone has their place, their duty and their particular skills. There’s not a lot of distracting and confusing running around which enhances the anticipation factor of the game.
My number one reason baseball is the greatest sport ever:
No cheerleaders. Baseball players don’t need cheerleaders. Obviously this means they are more talented and their fans are more devoted to the sport.
um. you’ve just offended all cheerleaders.
Yes, Jeremy, a big ol’ Dodger fan am I, even though I grew up in upstate NY. I was born in LA and raised by Dodger fans, so it’s in my blood. Also, you’re on the money with your info, except Jason Schmidt went down with an injury after pitching twice (and crappily). Mark Hendrickson (all 6’9″ of him) is doing an able job of filling in.
There may be no cheerleaders in little skirts and stuff, Beth, but many teams have those obnoxious characters in outfits, like the Phillie Phanatic. They may not be *as* bad as cheerleaders, but they’re just bad bad bad.
um. you’ve just insulted all mascots.
mascots are my favorite part of sporting events. i was a mascot once, in high school. it was great fun.
tim — do you know alan taylor’s book _william cooper’s town_? it’s about the founding of your hometown by j.f. cooper’s pop. it won a pulitzer sometime mid-90s. i recommend.
I always wanted to be a male cheerleader, but at tryouts I was always cut for squeezing the pom poms.
Speaking of Dodger Dogs, I just heard on NPR that PETA is lobbying the Dodgers to switch out their dogs, since their supplier (Farmer John) uses practices cruel to the pigs. I know yall are rolling your eyes but I’m for it, of course. And though I sort of hate pro sports in general now, I would like to brag that back in the day, I was the single biggest living fan of the famous 1970s Dodger infield.
Okay, this may be a repeat comment, because my last one disappeared and may yet reappear.
Bryan: I know of the book, of course, but haven’t read it. Perhaps my impending return to C’town will inspire me to pick it up.
SWells: That’s why I always order the All-Beef Super Dodger Dog — no cruelty to pigs. Okay, okay, I know you’re right.
Plus, you’re not gonna give me a shout-out for the Eliot reference? C’mon.
I am a Dodger fan and follow the sport after Jeremy’s fashion but baseball just isn’t cool.
Look at the all the ways we try and talk around it. Pastoral setting, cholestrol laden food, hanging out with friends, and no cheerleaders. But the game itself? I like the occasional dramatic confrontations between pitcher and hitter (don’t have the picture of me in my Reggie jersey but I was there when the Angels clinched in 1982) but the rest of the game just doesn’t work for me unless you’re at the park and having the aforementioned extracurricular fun.
Not sure exactly what the problem is but here are some ideas: most of the guys who played baseball at my high school were jerks, George Will, the game’s obsession with statistics and history, Barry Bonds, the way Dodger Stadium was built on top of seized land, Randy Johnson’s mullet, and that George W. Bush was once the majority “owner” of the Texas Rangers.
Basketball = the best team sport. Tennis = the best sport.
Check out David Foster Wallace’s essay on pro tennis sometime, great stuff.
And yet, even after all of this complaining…if only the Dodgers could use some of that talent they’re hoarding down in AAA and get one big bat to put in the middle of their lineup to go along with that incredible starting pitching they might finally win their first playoff series since that glorious run in 1988.
Tim, here’s a shout out for that use of Eliot in the title. Ask Jeremy, I can be touchy when not given due credit for such references.
Have you and Jen subjected yourselves to the all you can eat experience in the right field pavillions yet?
Thanks to Tim, I have discovered the joys of major-league baseball. Being born an’ bred in L.A. has made me an automatic Dodger fan, and Vin Scully’s voice will always remind me of carefree summer days, but now I understand what people are on about. I really do enjoy watching the game from on high, suckin’ on a Dodger dog, his hands between my knees (hrm?) although I think I have a ways to go before I fully understand the intricacies of the narrative. Grasshopper is learning, though. Wax on, wax off.
I have to say, Stella learned to become a baseball fan a couple of years ago during the great Red Sox – Yankees 7-game ALCS. She found baseball deadly boring for years, and then suddenly, with that series, the light switched on. We went to England that October, just after the Red Sox won game 7, and she was crushed to have to miss the World Series. In fact, as we were walking in the Lake District, she was searching for an Internet cafe to pop in and check the scores, I kid you not.
Now that I’m not in Washington anymore, I don’t think she’s watched a single inning of baseball. But it was an exciting flirtation for both of us that fall, nonetheless.
Ruben, thank you for your acknowledgement of the Prufrock reference, but I must disagree strenuously with your critique of baseball. One of my favorite ways to watch baseball is at the park all by myself, with no one to distract me from intense concentration on what’s going on on the field. Each at bat, every pitch, while in itself perhaps tiny, becomes significant in taking its place in the larger pattern of the game, like grains of sand in a mandala. The rhythms of baseball — short bursts of action followed by lulls in which tension builds or recedes — are fascinatingly meditative to me.
I certainly appreciate a fast-paced game of basketball, but its frenetic nature seems to me to be an overkill of spectacle. Without the contemplative pauses of baseball — between pitches , at-bats, and innings — there’s no space for real thought.
Sure, I’m embarrassed that conservative know-it-alls like George Will are equally fascinated by baseball, but have you ever read Roger Angell or Tom Boswell? I highly recommend the latter’s How Life Imitates the World Series. You’ll never look at the sport in the same way.
That David Foster Wallace essay about tennis *is* one of the best essays on any sport I’ve ever read. Part of the reason I like it so much is that he not only addresses the sheer strength and raw power (um, another reference I’m sure you’ll get) of pro tennis players, but he also delves into the intellectual aspects of the sport — the head games, its similarities to chess, etc.
P.S. Can you really say you’re a Dodger fan and at the same time proudly claim ownership of a Reggie Jackson jersey (from any team)? His 3 home runs in game 6 of the 1977 WS and his dirty, sneaky, illegal break-up of the double play in game 4 of 1978 (both, of course, against the Dodgers) give him seat #1 in my pantheon of most-hated players.
Tim, you got me. Despite it being an Angel jersey and my relative youth in ’82 you’re absolutely right about my being a less than serious Dodger fan to ever wear Jackson’s # 44.
I would have the same reaction to any Laker “fan” who dared to wear the jersey of any Celtic player.
We’ll have to go to a game sometime unless you strenuously disagree. I’ll try and not intrude upon your Zen experience and I promise to not squeeze into my offending tight polyester (jersey that is).
But Reggie is # 1 on your most hated players? Who else is on that list? I would have guessed that guys who did more damage to the Blue on a regular basis would rank higher, say Giants, division rivals, or at least National Leaguers.
Glad you were familiar with the Wallace tennis essay-I’ll definitely give those two guys you mentioned a shot. The only baseball book I’ve read is the Kearns Goodwin memoir on growing up a Brooklyn Dodger fan.
And to my editor, thanks for clearing up my spammed comments.