A slight amendment to my opinion on baseball

By Emerald Gao
Written on June 24

My friend Kira will be pleased by this, if she ever reads it. She's borne my myriad of complaints about baseball: the lull of the regular season, the lack of time restraints, the lack of visible athleticism in many of the players, and so on. Naturally, it's not one-sided teasing on my part -- as a die-hard of world football I am well-versed in the criticisms aimed at my favorite sport. But all ribbing aside, baseball has remained one of the only popular sports whose culture and appeal I cannot fully fathom.

The subverted notions of offense and defense are disorienting. The pitcher's tertiary, yet central, role as the physical liaison between the two sides is a fascinating, infuriating concept. Other question marks? The geometry, the physics, the lineups, the obsession with stats. It's a foreign sport to me.

Far from judging this sport lightly, I've attended my fair share of matches (mostly at the Oakland Coliseum), and I used to follow the A's quite a bit, but looking back on all the games I went to, I have to say the live atmosphere at games lends more to distraction than attention. If there's one thing that turns me off the culture of the game, that's probably it -- how am I supposed to love what's going on way down below if the yuppie in the bleacher row behind me won't shut up on his cell phone?

Apologies about the rant, but things are looking up. After all, I am amending this opinion, aren't I? It's not a total turnaround, but it's a start. A significant breakthrough, you could say.

I've been watching the College World Series these past few weeks. Collegiate sports are more enticing by virtue of the fact that these are our peers, our classmates, who are accomplishing these feats and putting their passions out there for the world to see. I don't have any alliegances, obviously, but once it comes down to the final two teams, I've always gotta choose. Easy pick this year: Oregon State Beavers, the underdogs on the verge of a shock repeat. I had half an eye on the game and half an eye on my games of Solitaire, until the seventh inning, when my perception of baseball was given a good, hard shake.

Anyone who watched that game (anyone?!) will probably know the exact play I am referring to even before I describe it. His team down 7-3 in the seventh inning, with a man (Tim Federoff) on first base, UNC player Seth Williams absolutely hammers one down the left field line. Federoff is rounding the bases desperately, like he can't get enough air in his lungs and there's a big ol' oxygen tank waiting for him at home plate. The OSU left fielder, John Wallace, retrieves the ball in the corner and heaves it in. It goes to shortstop Darwin Barney, who has been the toast of the tournament, and the kid, his throwing aim, it is like a laserbeam. I'm not exaggerating. Federoff is approaching home plate at the point, but Barney's throw is perfectly placed just foul to the line, and the catcher, Mitch Canham, is planted like a statue in front of home plate. The ball beats the runner, miraculously, and Canham tags Federoff out.

What could have sparked a mighty comeback from the Tar Heels instead sealed their fate, if not in the numbers then certainly in morale. It was such a simple, clean play, really, that three-part relay. But it's immediately clear, because of this team and because of the nature of team sports, that there are untold elements that have gone into that moment. Sure, it's what we fans hope for day and night, and what we expect from our teams. I wonder, however, if we can really appreciate how much work goes into attaining that sort of precision, and more importantly, that sort of faith that your teammates will be at the right place at the right time, and execute to perfection. To me, that is the ultimate connection: the reward of being a player linked inexorably to the reward of being a fan.

So that, I suppose, is the bond that I now have with the sport of baseball. There are still details to be ironed out, and I've been studying the sport, poking and prodding cautiously. There is a moment that I love, just as the pitch is released, when everything goes into motion. I'm not sure how to explain it, but I guess it is the payoff for all of the anticipation this sport stirs up. I'm still baffled by some of the specifics in baseball, but tonight I made a great stride into understanding why people love it so much.

Back to article index