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Mike (Sedai), Matt (John McClane) and I started talking about baseball in The Shoutbox, so I thought I'd start a thread for random baseball musings.
The discussion there left off on the subtleties of the sport, and what it takes to appreciate what is admittedly the slowest-moving of the four major North American sports.
I find that most baseball fans enjoy it for one (or more) of three reasons:
First, the day-in, day-out, ever-present nature of the baseball season. If you pick a given team, they'll have a game scheduled on roughly 90% of the days during the 6-month regular season. It's always there, always in the background.
Second, the history behind it. We're talking 100 years of records and precedents, and new things still happen basically every year. Baseball's history make it all the more meaningful when a record is broken, as opposed to the NFL, where records don't go back more than a few decades.
Third, the incredible number of variables that go into determining each team's success. This lends itself to an absurd amount of statistical analysis which, despite being insanely creative (DIPS, for example) and comprehensive at times, still hasn't managed to boil baseball down to a science.
There's also the issue of parity: despite massively different payrolls throughout the game, there is a very tiny margin, talent-wise, from the worst team to the best. The worst teams in history still win a third of their games, and the best teams in history still lose a third. Any team has a very reasonable chance of beating any other team on the right day, something you cannot always say about a sport like football.
I could go on forever: baseball has -- overwhelmingly -- the most beautiful and personal architecture of all the major sports. Games are cheaper to attend than in the NFL, NBA, or NHL. And it's the only league with an All-Star game that means anything, or draws any attention.
So, to those who love baseball: what do you love about it? The reasons above? Others?
I'll also be dropping in random thoughts throughout the season unrelated to the initial question posed here. First up: Alex Rodriguez may not be of the genus homo sapien. He may be some sort of machine/alien hybrid hitting organism.
The discussion there left off on the subtleties of the sport, and what it takes to appreciate what is admittedly the slowest-moving of the four major North American sports.
I find that most baseball fans enjoy it for one (or more) of three reasons:
First, the day-in, day-out, ever-present nature of the baseball season. If you pick a given team, they'll have a game scheduled on roughly 90% of the days during the 6-month regular season. It's always there, always in the background.
Second, the history behind it. We're talking 100 years of records and precedents, and new things still happen basically every year. Baseball's history make it all the more meaningful when a record is broken, as opposed to the NFL, where records don't go back more than a few decades.
Third, the incredible number of variables that go into determining each team's success. This lends itself to an absurd amount of statistical analysis which, despite being insanely creative (DIPS, for example) and comprehensive at times, still hasn't managed to boil baseball down to a science.
There's also the issue of parity: despite massively different payrolls throughout the game, there is a very tiny margin, talent-wise, from the worst team to the best. The worst teams in history still win a third of their games, and the best teams in history still lose a third. Any team has a very reasonable chance of beating any other team on the right day, something you cannot always say about a sport like football.
I could go on forever: baseball has -- overwhelmingly -- the most beautiful and personal architecture of all the major sports. Games are cheaper to attend than in the NFL, NBA, or NHL. And it's the only league with an All-Star game that means anything, or draws any attention.
So, to those who love baseball: what do you love about it? The reasons above? Others?
I'll also be dropping in random thoughts throughout the season unrelated to the initial question posed here. First up: Alex Rodriguez may not be of the genus homo sapien. He may be some sort of machine/alien hybrid hitting organism.
