David Bentley Hart: On the Metaphysical Meaning of Baseball

[vsedriver]

we just watched PBS American Master on Ted Williams. After watching the show I turned to my 87 yr old mother who grew up in Boston with a father who played minor league ball, and asked her if she ever saw him play. She said many times. I asked her if he was that good and she said, yes, he was that good. Played well, baseball is a great game.

 

[dochawk]

Any game is boring to watch if you don’t understand it, baseball most of all.

Oh, I understand it all right. That doesn’t make watching it much more interesting.

If watched, it needs to be live, not televised.

And I gave up on the major leagues a couple of strikes ago, when millionaires fought billionaires while all making a fortune playing a childhood game. I just never came back, and stick to minor leagues.

Once I realized it was a challenge between myself and the landscape I was hooked.

Ok, I never would have seen a connection between golf and garden hung without this post!

hawk

 

[adgloriam]

He may not deserve it, but he totally has that reputation. It is a recurring joke.

He’s tough as nails.

Here’s Euro 2016 final match with a french player seeking to bust Ronaldo’s knee ligaments on purpose.

Worth watching:

 

[MrZoom]

12 years ago this month I did a “Southern West Virginia Baseball Tour”. Attended three games in a little over 24 hours, in Charleston, Bluefield, and Princeton. It helped that Princeton and Bluefield are in the same league, and about 10 miles apart. In fact, in this instance, they were playing each other in a unique doubleheader: afternoon game at Bluefield, and night game at Princeton. As I recall, Princeton won both.

 

[po18guy]

Of all the major US sports, I would choose baseball. Why? They have old-timer’s games. All other retired athletes are too crippled.

BTW, as a kid, at the long-gone Sick’s Stadium in Seattle, I got to see Satchel Paige play. At the time, I did not know why the crowd roared when he took the field.

I do now.

 

[ZMystiCat]

If watched, it needs to be live, not televised.

As much as I love watching baseball live, I do miss not being able to get the full picture of each pitch. It takes a bit away from the duel between pitcher and batter.

 

[dochawk]

Of all the major US sports, I would choose baseball. Why? They have old-timer’s games. All other retired athletes are too crippled.

NASCAR Senior Circuit: 300 miles with the turn signal on all the way.

:crazy_face:

 

[Inquisitor85]

Typical Americans, missing the nuance and intrigue of a good test match, cricket is a game that requires real mental stamina.

 

[po18guy]

And the seatbelt dangling…

 

[Trader]

Typical Americans, missing the nuance and intrigue of a good test match, cricket is a game that requires real mental stamina.

You cannot understand how much patience it takes to wait 108 years for my Chicago Cubs to win another championship. Too bad for you.

 

[Trader]

I have to admit that baseball has gotten wimpier. I made my Little League All Star Team as a pitcher. I could throw hard and was very wild. After a few batters got hit in the early innings, nobody swung anymore. My youngest brother now informs me that his kids play in a league that requires the pitcher to be removed after hitting two batters.

I loved to hit more than I liked pitching, especially on fields that had outfield fences. Because I was a very slow runner, I could just hit the ball over the fence and could run as slowly as I wanted. Hitting singles was boring.

 

[Inquisitor85]

Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset have never won the county championship, now that takes patience.

 

[PetraG]

Baseball is great live. It’s not as good on TV. A lot of it has to do with the announcers. Good announcers make it more enjoyable.

I miss Vin Scully.

Golf is great live or on TV, especially the majors and other big tournaments.

The end of a tournament is hard to see live, unless you got a plum spot on 18.
As for announcers, you can hardly appreciate a good golf announcer until you’ve been subjected to Chris Berman. That was not a good fit for him. Yikes.

Just me…I really like Bob Costas, regardless of what he’s calling. He works hard at his craft, and it shows. I’m glad he seems to like calling baseball.

 

[PetraG]

I have to admit that baseball has gotten wimpier. I made my Little League All Star Team as a pitcher. I could throw hard and was very wild. After a few batters got hit in the early innings, nobody swung anymore. My youngest brother now informs me that his kids play in a league that requires the pitcher to be removed after hitting two batters…

I don’t find the removal of wild pitchers as “wimpy,” lol. When Little League pitchers are hitting batters, they’re just that bad, sorry. When an MLB pitcher hits two batters in the same game, it has this way of clearing the benches. Your method of intimidating batters is obviously not considered one of the legitimate “fundamentals” of the game. (Wild pitchers can just play shortstop or center field.)

 

[Trader]

I don’t find the removal of wild pitchers as “wimpy,” lol. When Little League pitchers are hitting batters, they’re just that bad, sorry. When an MLB pitcher hits two batters in the same game, it has this way of clearing the benches. Your method of intimidating batters is obviously not considered one of the legitimate “fundamentals” of the game. (Wild pitchers can just play shortstop or center field.)

I never hit anyone on purpose. I did feel sorry for my catcher though. He had to chase a lot of balls after they hit the backstop.

Some people claimed I made the All Star team because I was on a really bad team. When not pitching, I played shortstop because I was one of the few kids who could throw the ball all the way across the diamond on the fly. I still liked to pitch because I had such a short walk out to my position. Center field was the worst.

 

[PetraG]

I never hit anyone on purpose. I did feel sorry for my catcher though. He had to chase a lot of balls after they hit the backstop.

Some people claimed I made the All Star team because I was on a really bad team. When not pitching, I played shortstop because I was one of the few kids who could throw the ball all the way across the diamond on the fly. I still liked to pitch because I had such a short walk out to my position. Center field was the worst.

If you have to feel sorry for your catcher for anything other than not having enough padding in his mitt, that’s not All Star pitching. If you’re hitting batters, somebody else needs to be pitching. That isn’t how the position is played. That doesn’t mean you weren’t legitimately one of the best overall players in your division.

A wild pitcher who is reasonably quick often makes a really good shortstop. Sometimes they make good catchers, too–which in your case meant being willing to take what you were willing to dish out, lol. (A catcher with a good arm is more important in youth baseball than in Little League, though.)

 

[Zach]

Costas always said baseball was his favorite sport. The best announcers were the game of the week back in the 80s. Vince Scully teamed with Joe Garagiola. Bob Costas with Tony Kubek.

 

[PetraG]

Costas always said baseball was his favorite sport. The best announcers were the game of the week back in the 80s. Vince Scully teamed with Joe Garagiola. Bob Costas with Tony Kubek.

Oh, I remember Joe Garagiola, too! We had the game of the week on all summer. Didn’t always have time to watch it, but it was there for whenever there was a break in the day.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Typical Americans, missing the nuance and intrigue of a good test match, cricket is a game that requires real mental stamina.

Typical non-American not understanding the true nuances of baseball.

 

[Trader]

By the time I was in college I could claim versatility. I could hit like a pitcher, run like a catcher, field like a designated hitter and had the sharp vision of an umpire.

In my senior year, our seminary was challenged to a game of softball by the largest dorm on campus. Since I had never played fast pitch softball, they made me umpire.

Then we played a second game of slow-pitch softball. Being from Chicago, where we played with a 16 inch ball, I thought 12 inch slow-pitch was ridiculously easy. I was the one who helped with fielding practice. As the ball was lobbed in to me I could hit it just about anywhere I wanted. Since our left fielder needed a lot of practice, I hit a lot of balls to him. After hitting line drives in front of him, he came in too much, so I hit a few over his head. The other team apparently noticed this, so in the actual game they shifted their outfielders toward left. When I got to hit for real, I just sliced one down the right field line and circled the bases, even though I was a very slow runner. That was a lot better memory from college than Latin classes.