The Angels got swept by the last-place Orioles last week, and that pretty much put the icing on the disgusting carrot cake that is our 2010 season. Bad defense, bad offence and bad luck are throwing a huge party in the Angel organization as Texas marches toward the AL West championship. I was pretty down about it, until I read a recent article in First Things. David B. Hart—himself an Orioles fan—waxes philosophical on the perfection of baseball in an essay that is as intelligent and reflective as it is light-hearted and humorous. For those of you whose baseball teams have no shot at a pennant, step back a bit, read this article and be glad you are a fan of the perfect game and not one of those "oblong games." Here's a little taste ...
"Everything is so perfectly calibrated that almost every play is a matter of the most unforgiving precision; a ball correctly played in the infield is almost always an out, while the slightest misplay usually results in a man on base. The effective difference in velocity between a fastball and a changeup is infinitesimal in neurological terms, and yet it can utterly disrupt the timing of even the best hitter. There are Pythagorean enigmas here, occult and imponderable: mystic proportions written into the very fabric of nature of which we were once as ignorant as of the existence of other galaxies."
Read and be consoled.
3 comments:
Ha! I read that article and totally thought of you.
Actually, I STARTED the article. I respect baseball, but I guess I don't love it enough to find the article entertaining rather than florid and overwrought.
I know I'm in the minority, though--there were lots of favorable comments on it at the First Things website. :)
yeah, the article is geared toward us platonic idealists. you aristotelian realists just aren't touched in the same way, i suppose.
Funny article...and I wager to say that nothing even remotely like that has been written about other games. Baseball allows for more indulgence then any other sport...it's part of why I love it.
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