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whiskybear
http://trail.ups.edu/article.php?story=20040429122730960
Viva la beisbol
May 07, 2004 at 06:39AM View BBCode
I'm the editor of the school newspaper at University of Puget Sound and write a weekly sports column called "infield fly rule." I wrote my final article last week--a sort of magnum opus on the sport of baseball. You guys might appreciate it.http://trail.ups.edu/article.php?story=20040429122730960
Duff77
May 07, 2004 at 08:53AM View BBCode
Holy s*** you're a better writer than me. Nice job. Absolutely perfect.
Unclescam777
May 07, 2004 at 02:03PM View BBCode
I'll read it when my head is clear, I can't quite understand all those big words right now. Why is this your last article?
whiskybear
May 07, 2004 at 04:46PM View BBCode
I'm graduating, and we've run the last issue of the paper. There will be other articles with other papers, but I think this closes the book on "infield fly rule"--unless I strike it big with my own column for, say, SI (move over, Steve Rushin). :P
skierdude44
May 07, 2004 at 09:57PM View BBCode
Great article! Too many people dont realize the beauty of baseball. My friend loves football and basketball but hates baseball. I asked him why and he said because it is too slow. I said, yea but that is what is great about it. There is no clock, a game could go on forever. There is so much pressure on every pitch. Games matter to the end and there is no way to kill the clock like in football. Every run matters unlike basketball where points can be easy to come by (unless you are the nets:mad:). He said yea but it just goes by too damn slow. I was surprised that he would feel that way being that he is a great athlete. He is a sophmore being recruited to play football by 5 D-1 schools already and I thought he would have realized the beauty of baseball because he goes out and leaves it on the field every time he plays football and does the same when he plays basketball, but for some reason doesnt see how baseball players do that.
nextyearcubs
I think when people say that baseball is too slow, they're saying that they have no attention span. Simply put, baseball is a thinking person's game full of tension and drama. Those people want to see home runs, but don't appreciate the tension of a great pitcher - batter duel. Seeing a guy fight back from 0-2, fouling off pitch after pitch and taking a walk... appreciating that is a function of attention span. I could write pages and pages of great games I've seen already this year, while football will give you a handful each season, and the chance of you seeing them is small because they all play at the same time... I can watch 20 baseball games in a week compared to three or four football games.
Oh, well.
But great article nonetheless.
May 11, 2004 at 04:47PM View BBCode
I never bought the "too slow" argument. I look at basketball, where a good, close game ends up in a sucession of fouls, free throws, and twenty second timeouts. It may be thrilling at times, but taking 20 minutes or more to play out a minute of the clock is flat out ridiculous. Football is another one, how much time does a play take up? 10 seconds? How long are they in the huddle for? 30-40 seconds? Football is played by huge, hulking athletes, yet games are determined by featherweight kickers with last names consisting of 13 consonants and a single vowel.I think when people say that baseball is too slow, they're saying that they have no attention span. Simply put, baseball is a thinking person's game full of tension and drama. Those people want to see home runs, but don't appreciate the tension of a great pitcher - batter duel. Seeing a guy fight back from 0-2, fouling off pitch after pitch and taking a walk... appreciating that is a function of attention span. I could write pages and pages of great games I've seen already this year, while football will give you a handful each season, and the chance of you seeing them is small because they all play at the same time... I can watch 20 baseball games in a week compared to three or four football games.
Oh, well.
But great article nonetheless.
happy
May 12, 2004 at 12:32AM View BBCode
I think baseball is the ultimate watch at home game. I love going to the games, dont get me wrong, but i think baseball, and football are close in how interesting they are live at the game, but baseball is so much better than any other sport when you are at home, it is calming. It is tranquil... i dont know. I like it better live of course.
ME
May 12, 2004 at 12:38AM View BBCode
i always liked going to baseball the best (over football and way over basketball), but i think football is slightly more entertaining to watch at home.
Benne
May 12, 2004 at 02:59PM View BBCode
I remember attending my first game at the Kingdome in 1996. Ken Griffey Jr. blasted a home run in a winning effort against the Twins. I have gone to at least two games a year ever since. People who say baseball is too boring don't understand the nature of the game. You don't need to score 20 points on touchdowns or 80 on three-point shots. Baseball is about strategy and thought. It is like chess-maybe boring as heck but a heck of a lot of brain activity involved.
happy
May 13, 2004 at 04:42AM View BBCode
I dont remember my first game... i was like 3 or something. i remember last game. oh wait, no i dont. hmm... oh yeah, i went with ME and his dad, and took pictures of good places to have advertisements (the warehouse in RF, the wall the ivy used to be on in centerfield, and every chair in the entire building. and the entire outfield wall, and the walls on the foul line.
Duff77
But even at that...and my father always said this...baseball is a game that gives you a chance to talk. It's possible to have a twenty minute conversation about whether DiMaggio was better than Williams without missing anything. It's sad that so few people appriciate the natural "pleasantness" of the game anymore.
But that isn't to say there's no intensity or excitiment in baseball. It takes longer to develop, but it's thicker, I think, than in any other sport. Baseball is the best at giving you that cresendo effect... A big rally takes four or five batters, twenty or thirty pitches...the situation gets deeper and deeper, the tension rising with every pitch... Every time a batter steps out, or every time the count goes to 2-0, or every time the pitcher goes to the rosen bag or the catcher comes out to calm him down... It all adds to the tension until, finally, wham! Something happens... You can't beat that about baseball. I think more so than other sports, baseball gives you the time you need to fully appriciate what's going on, and to think about what might happen, which adds to the tension.
May 13, 2004 at 05:03AM View BBCode
I never bought the "two slow" thing either...or the "stuff only happens every five minutes" theory. There's a pitch every ten seconds or so, and every single one of them changes the situation. To an outsider, it may appear that nothing's happening, but for those in the know, whether or not it's ball 1 or strike 1 has everything to do with everything...But even at that...and my father always said this...baseball is a game that gives you a chance to talk. It's possible to have a twenty minute conversation about whether DiMaggio was better than Williams without missing anything. It's sad that so few people appriciate the natural "pleasantness" of the game anymore.
But that isn't to say there's no intensity or excitiment in baseball. It takes longer to develop, but it's thicker, I think, than in any other sport. Baseball is the best at giving you that cresendo effect... A big rally takes four or five batters, twenty or thirty pitches...the situation gets deeper and deeper, the tension rising with every pitch... Every time a batter steps out, or every time the count goes to 2-0, or every time the pitcher goes to the rosen bag or the catcher comes out to calm him down... It all adds to the tension until, finally, wham! Something happens... You can't beat that about baseball. I think more so than other sports, baseball gives you the time you need to fully appriciate what's going on, and to think about what might happen, which adds to the tension.
nextyearcubs
May 13, 2004 at 06:18AM View BBCode
I was watching the Cubs - Dodgers game tonight, Alex Cora fouls off, it had to be 14 pitches, after there were 2 strikes. It was great, the fans were pretty much on their feet. Matt Clement was pitching, and he was pretty good tonight, not great, but good for sure. So it was strike after strike, all fouled off, and 13 minutes later, Cora hits one out to right... two run homer, a light hitting middle infielder battling like that and putting one deep. I thought of this post when it was going on, becuase if you don't appreciate things like this, you just don't get it. The people who say baseball is too slow would say that Cora fouling off all those pitches, and Clement throwing all those strikes (its been my observation that generally these battles end in walks, pitchers just can't or aren't willing to throw that many strikes in a row) was extemely boring, but the drama of it all was overwhelming. It built to such a crescendo, and such an unlikely outcome with Cora up to bat. Unbelieveable.
happy
May 13, 2004 at 03:58PM View BBCode
i saw nextyearcubs's name, and i thought that you were gonna "elaborate" on what duff said (in other words im reading a 2 page paper) but instead it was about the cubs dodgers game or something...
nextyearcubs
What's so hard to understand about that? Do you not get the connection?
May 13, 2004 at 04:10PM View BBCode
I think you missed the point of my post. Duff said that baseball builds tension and excitement, and I mentioned an 18 pitch at bat (that had just happened) that lasted 13 minutes and included pitch after pitch fouled off, until it culminated with a home run hit by a weak hitting infielder.What's so hard to understand about that? Do you not get the connection?
whiskybear
May 13, 2004 at 06:41PM View BBCode
Most of us got it, nextyear. To get even more off-topic, one of the best foul ball hitters I've seen is Carlos Guillen. When he played for the M's, it seems like he made pitchers work more than anyone else. Eight, nine pitch at-bats, or falling behind 0-2 only to come back 3-2 and get a single or a walk. He's a scrappy hitter.
whitesox04
Good article though :)
May 13, 2004 at 09:17PM View BBCode
It's Viva El Beisbol. Beisbol is masculine in Spanish and therefore needs a masculine article.Good article though :)
happy
May 13, 2004 at 09:24PM View BBCode
um. i knew what you were saying. i just thought that i was gonna read 3 pages of "elaboration" on the not too slow theory, and instead it was only about as long as my longest post ever.
happy
May 14, 2004 at 05:45PM View BBCode
i know you can turn your airing it out on and off, but i thought the only setting for next years cubs was "extremely long"
nextyearcubs
I could make any number of jokes about that, but I'll leave it sit.
May 16, 2004 at 12:13AM View BBCode
i know you can turn your airing it out on and off, but i thought the only setting for next years cubs was "extremely long"
I could make any number of jokes about that, but I'll leave it sit.
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