Baseball

Once upon a time I had another blog. This blog was about baseball. Today I was thumbing through some old posts on this blog and I crossed one where I wrote the following:

"Do you ever wonder why?
Why do we watch this game?
Why do we take 3 hours out of our day only to see our team blow the lead in the 9th inning to take a grueling loss?
Why do we give it our all?
Why do we care so much?
Why do we love this game when it clearly loves no one?
I was sitting around asking these questions to a few people today.
Seriously what is the point of it all?

Life is tough enough as it is... so why deal with this game that does nothing but seem to break me down?

Here’s what I came up with so far:

Baseball is so great because it has a point, its something we understand. There are different levels to it so it isn’t fair. We don’t like fair. We like to be distinguished. There are different levels within the game and different levels to understanding it. All the same anyone can understand it on some level.
Baseball is, in essence, pitching, fielding, hitting. There’s a point to it; an end goal of victory. More points, better score, equal victory. It’s something we grasp, its real, and it makes life seem real. Life isn’t something we can grasp. It’s beyond comprehension, but baseball isn’t. Baseball is life on a level we can understand.
Baseball is man’s struggle to be great. It’s man working, cheating, stealing, pushing, lying, and grinding out plays, games, and seasons. It reflects life perfectly. Some people are better at it than others. Some have different key skills. Some people play fair, some don’t. It can provide happy and depressing memories. That’s what makes baseball great. That’s why we spend so much time on it.

I spend too much time thinking.

Go Sox."

Yesterday I went to a baseball game. My team didn't win. In fact, they were up by 3 and blew the lead after they took out Tim Wakefield after 6 2/3rds innings. Somewhere after the home run which tied the game I realized that it didn't really matter if they won or lost because I somehow had found peace and happiness in just attending the game. As I once said to my peers in Michigan while trying to describe baseball - "it's safe, its peaceful, its home."