Ah, spring training. Baseball, America’s sport, where democracy is inherent to the game—even the fat and old players can play. It’s the lazy man’s sport. Oh, how nice it must be to stand out in centerfield with not a care in the world and claim athleticism.
I hate baseball. The game’s meaningless. Presently, each team in the big leagues plays at least 162 games per season, chewing up valuable cable TV time. Up to 19 more games can be tacked on if the team is unlucky enough to grace the playoffs. If you lose a game, what’s it matter?
Football teams play 16 games. Each game weighs heavily on the postseason picture. One loss could be the difference between owning a playoff spot or returning to the mansion in disgrace. As a comparison, 17 games into the season and a baseball team still has 90 percent of its season left.
This is the most damning evidence I can use to prove how undemanding baseball is. No other group of athletes could possibly hold up playing 162 games straight, with a few days off here and there. They’d simply fall apart—their muscles would degenerate and their joints would explode.
Every so often, a fielder makes a great catch, but really, how great can it be when he’s got a massive mitt strapped to his hands? Cricket players don’t get any help; they have to catch stingers bare-handed. That’s more impressive. Yes, hitting a baseball is among the most difficult things to do in sports, but is it more difficult than controlling a ball with your feet? Is it more difficult than passing a puck around while some goon checks you into the boards? How about sinking a hole-in-one, or even a long putt? How did wrestling get booted from the Olympics but baseball remains?
My main issue with baseball is it lacks true heart. That quintessential spirit of hard-work and dedication is never paid-off in one crucial moment. Almost every movement is pure muscle memory: swinging the bat and throwing to a base or home. The film “Rudy” would never hold up if baseball was the sport.
“C’mon coach! Put me in, I know I can hit off that pitcher. I’ve been practicing for ages!”
“Goddarnit, alright Ruettiger, get warmed up.”
Three pitches in and that little squirt would be right back on the bench. No matter how hard a person practices, baseball’s best rely more on natural talent than hard work. Michael Jordan is proof of that. If you want to be a center in the NBA, you’d be better off being tall than being short and well-practiced.
Basketball and baseball are closely related as both lack big, game-changing plays. Momentum shifts back and forth too quickly, or not at all. The only exciting time to watch either sport is the last few minutes, and that’s only if the score is close.
I know why you like baseball. It’s why you like every other moronic thing in your life: some person whom you loved passionately introduced you to it as a child, when you didn’t have the brain capacity to sit back and truly consider how awful it is. Grandpa took you to your first baseball game when you were 6 and bought you a Coca-Cola and chili dog. He let you use his binoculars and that was that. You didn’t enjoy the game, you enjoyed spending time with family.
As an adult, with Grandpa gone, you love the sentimentality of it all, except now you can appreciate beer and the gang mentality baseball fans produce during the game.
There’s no worse group of fans than baseball fans. They’re like the popular girls in high school, focusing all their verbal and emotional abuse on one scapegoat, so as to hide how sad their lives really are. Bill Buckner committed a fatal error during Game 6 of the World Series and still gets called out for it by loyal baseball fans, even though he should be considered one of the better players. Poor Steve Bartman, the Cubs fan who accidentally interfered with an “easy-out,” still gets blamed for a terrible team performance, even 10 years and one documentary later. As an Oakland Raiders fan, I might shank you in the parking lot, but at least I have some class and compassion to know when enough’s enough.
I’m sure baseball was the bee’s knees back in 1848, when there was nothing better to do and strenuous exercise was left for farming and daily work, but let’s not hold onto something just because of tradition. Baseball’s not a sport anymore—it’s just another obsession for nerds who played Magic: the Gathering as teenagers and didn’t get laid, and now, as adults, believe that, by feigning interest in baseball, the ladies would be more interested. They’re not.
Is it September yet? The real sports couldn’t get here any sooner.
