Why is baseball truly the greatest of all games?

[Brendan]

Obviously still on a high from it all, but today's game got me thinking a bit. Why is baseball the greatest sport? My reason -- no clock. Today would have never happened if not for baseball. In anything else, someone would have run the ball up the middle, dribbled into a corner, used up all of a shot-clock. Only in baseball can this happen. Obviously, some on here might disagree, but what do you all think? Why is baseball the greatest of all games?

[Skyballer]

Obviously still on a high from it all, but today's game got me thinking a bit. Why is baseball the greatest sport? My reason -- no clock. Today would have never happened if not for baseball. In anything else, someone would have run the ball up the middle, dribbled into a corner, used up all of a shot-clock. Only in baseball can this happen. Obviously, some on here might disagree, but what do you all think? Why is baseball the greatest of all games?

It requires more intelligence than any from everyone, the players and coaches/managers/owners

[XZero771679666304]

Because on any given day, anything can happen.

 

I most other sports, raw athleticism and physical prowess usually trumps skill. Not so much in baseball. It's also a game of athleticism, but more one of skill, intelligence, focus and anticipation. On any given day, anybody can win, anybody can be the hero.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

 

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

[tfarks]

Clutchness.

[Omar]

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor5.shtml

 

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor6.shtml

 

Duh.

[SweetZombieJesus]

It's baseball's complexity, not its purity, that instills in us our freedom

[sweetpeteman]

While I like that one, vance, I think this one is also a great summation, especially the bolded part:

 

 

* Ray. People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

[Coach C]

I agree with Vance and sweetpeteman. The part where Terrence Mann on Field of Dreams, when he was talking to Ray about baseball when Ray was on the verge of losing his farm.

 

That pretty much sums it up about baseball.

[chuckywang]

I like to paraphrase Mario Cuomo from Ken Burn's Baseball documentary:

 

In other sports, there is time. You have to play against the clock. There's no clock in baseball. If you can keep that rally going, if you can get on base, if you keep getting hits, you can play 'til.....a week from now. There is no parameter that makes it impossible for you to perform still more excellently.

[C.C.]

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

 

My favorite Baseball movie of all time!

 

Baseball is the only sport for me. I watch'em all, but I'm only passionate about baseball and the Cubs. Bears, Bulls, Hawks can win or lose and I won't lose sleep over - The Cubs are a different story...

[Magnetic Curses]

largely, i think there's that perception among baseball fans becaue they feel that only they can understand the subtle nuances of the game. the feeling that, since baseball is a game of such subtlety and precision, that every moment counts moreso in baseball than in any other sport when nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

baseball games are boring, they're long, and many times they just suck. baseball is still my favorite game, but not because i think it's the greatest game ever or that there's some sort of real magic and mystique surrounding it. i like it because my background is in psychology and statistics and i think quantifying human behavior is the quest for understanding the human mind. i see a lot of this in baseball, more than any other sport, there's enough of a sample size to really delve down deep to find out what really makes the game tick.

 

when you do this in respect to baseball, you find that the game isn't a game of nuance and subtle complexity, but a game of common sense. the teams that win year after year understand this. the teams that don't win, curse their inability to execute the inane, nonsensical fundamentals of the game--and that becomes the scapegoat for a poor season, EVERY single time. find me a team that loses and doesn't blame their poor results on a lack of fundamentals and i'll buy you a coke.

 

i love how the game drives me completely insane for a few hours and causes me to believe in magic and ghosts and curses, but the main reason is because i've always admired the common sense of perrenial winners and their understanding of the absolute simplicity of it all.

Edited June 30, 2007 by Stannis

[kente777]

...because Baseball is the only sport that true emulates life experiences. There is no clock in life, there are plenty of ups and downs just like in baseball, and we must endure to the end (like baseball's long season).

 

People like football because it's fast paced...we live in a "want it now" society. Football fulfills that. Baseball, however, is slow paced, methodical, and calculated...more so than any other sport.

 

I love Baseball because it most emulates my life.

[erik316wttn]

Baseball is more a thinking man's game. Brute strength will only get you so far. Hieght doesn't give you an automatic advantage. There is a finesse to it. You have to make due with the opportunites you have. The best hitters fail to get on base 6 out of 10 times.

 

Plus, you need the most talent to play baseball. Anyone can be trained to run fast. Tackling someone isn't a very impressive skill. If you're agile and tall you can slam dunk. However, it takes a certain kind of skill to hit a 95 mph fastball.

[BleedCubbieBlue81]

While I like that one, vance, I think this one is also a great summation, especially the bolded part:

 

 

* Ray. People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

 

I know it's from Field of Dreams, but that speech is poetry at it's finest. Every year right before opening day, I watch that scene. And I'll keep doing it for as long as I live. It gives me the chills everytime I see it.

[hawkcub]

...because Baseball is the only sport that true emulates life experiences. There is no clock in life, there are plenty of ups and downs just like in baseball, and we must endure to the end (like baseball's long season).

 

People like football because it's fast paced...we live in a "want it now" society. Football fulfills that. Baseball, however, is slow paced, methodical, and calculated...more so than any other sport.

 

I love Baseball because it most emulates my life.

 

I've thought that way about baseball for a long time. In other sports you don't play almost every day like baseball. (Granted you practice but it's not the same as a real game) Kinda like in real life you work 5 or 6 days sometimes more.

[OleMissCub]

Bob Costas in Ken Burns' documentary said something along these lines:

 

"With baseball, the knowledgeable fan gets so much out of it in so small a frame of time....seconds even. When there is a runner on first and a ball is hit to the outfield, our brains immediately think about several things at once, we think about the speed of the man at first, we think of the arm of the man that the ball was hit to, we think of the game situation, etc"

 

The first 10 minutes of Ken Burns' documentary is perhaps the greatest summation of all that is "Baseball" that I've ever seen. Oh ya...that Brooks Robinson play at the end is [expletive].

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsvHh2U7pfA

[FergieJ31]

For me the Zen aspect of baseball is its most compelling. Pitching and hitting are extremely complex skills, but if you start thinking too much about either you are on a road to ruin.

 

This aspect - the unconscious thing - is described very well in the recent ESPN Mag article on Brad Lidge:

 

Pitching, maybe more than anything else in sports, is a Zen experience, a profound letting go, a deep trust. You do not guide; you believe. You do not force; you allow. Between the rubber and the plate, the path of the ball follows an arc of faith, and each pitch, once committed to a spot in the catcher's mitt, is a dedicated, risky renewal of that faith. When Hickey says "Confidence is everything, and ultimate confidence is essential," he's not talking about some steel-cojones desire to come with the cheese no matter the situation. He's referencing this precarious balance, a place where thoughts and words don't illuminate but instead wreak havoc.

 

"When you start thinking, you are dead," says Eckersley, the Hall of Fame closer. "When you think about anything other than 'There's my spot, here's my pitch,' you are completely screwed."

[Friendly Confines]

I just read the book Shoeless Joe, which is much better than the movie Field of Dreams. Also, we read it for our English class, how sweet is that?

[Careless]

Baseball is more a thinking man's game. Brute strength will only get you so far. Hieght doesn't give you an automatic advantage. There is a finesse to it. You have to make due with the opportunites you have. The best hitters fail to get on base 6 out of 10 times.

 

Plus, you need the most talent to play baseball. Anyone can be trained to run fast. Tackling someone isn't a very impressive skill. If you're agile and tall you can slam dunk. However, it takes a certain kind of skill to hit a 95 mph fastball.

Baseball takes just about the least talent (golf?), but the most skill. Football (at some positions) takes the most intelligence. Not anyone can be trained to run fast

[GhostRunner]

In much the same way as the Zen aspect, baseball is knitted together with dichotomy - yin/yang balances, conflicts, and comparisons.

 

It's a team game that relies on a team mentality, yet is punctuated by continual strings of solitary man-on-man confrontations. Its dramatic swings stretch beyond the length of the field itself, or concentrate just inches in front of the plate. Every player relies on his teammates to win but always contains within himself the ability to alter the game alone. It distills the action and excitement into short bursts, leaving the spaces in between silent and elevating the tension by allowing a fan to contemplate the possibilities.

 

It's also mathematical harmony . . . twos, threes, fours, and nines. Squares, spheres, straight lines, curving arcs. It must be something like phi or Fibonacci, where the numbers and data of baseball resonate something primal in the mind.

 

I hear a lot of people complain about how boring baseball is. I try to convince them that a lot of the attraction is in what lies beneath the surface, and in the anticipation. "Boring" is subjective, but it's true that you need patience to be a baseball fan. Those who love and follow the game are well aware that having it rewards us more richly than immediate gratification ever could.

[Mephistopheles]

because it was the most developed sports game, professionally, when worker productivity went through the roof in the late 1800s/early 1900s

[Magnetic Curses]

baseball doesn't rely on a team mentality.

[hardcorecubfan]

It reminds us of our childhood when dad would listen to the game on radio, or for me running home from schoo just in time to catch the last 4 innings on WGN and Jack Brickhouse making the call. We all played the game, probably the first organize sport any of us played.