October 10, 2006--Beisbol Has Been Berry, Berry Good to Me
The NY Times keeps going on and on about the Yankees (see below), and that is making it difficult for me to recover from their miserable post-season performance.
I grew up in Brooklyn at a time when the Dodgers were still there but perversely was a Yankee fan largely because my cousin Chuck, four years older than I, inspired me to do everything he did. As we said back then, I followed in his footsteps. And as a result got into the same kind of trouble he did. More about that later . . . maybe.
But rooting for the Yankees while living walking distance from Ebbets Field was in itself transgressive enough. I even lost a tooth, not a baby one, in a fight with Charlie Ehlers about who was the better center fielder--Duke Snyder or Mickey Mantle. Mantle was better but Charlie kept all his teeth.
I grew up, then, assuming that the Yankees would pretty much always win the pennant and most of the time the World Series. So you can imagine how depressed their current sorry state makes me. It’s bad, very bad.
But as an aspiring writer, well aware of some of the great literature with baseball as subject matter (from Ernest Hemmingway to John Updike to Bernard Malamud) I am attempting to get a grip on myself by thinking about some of the reason why baseball has had such metaphoric meaning for “serious” writers. This is also a version of avoidance behavior—taking something emotionally painful and dealing with it abstractly, dispassionately. This, of course, is one of my specialties.
These writers, better than anything I might be able to say, have plumbed those metaphors thoroughly, so in my attempt to divert myself I have been thinking about some of the idiosyncratic rules of baseball and how they not only illuminate aspects of the game but also how they reflect certain American values. At least some of the values that used to guide us.
Take four balls and three strikes. Why do the rules say you need only three strikes to be called Out but need one more, four, to earn a Walk? I think to level the playing field (forgive the baseball idiom) between the pitcher and batter in that it is more difficult to throw a strike than a ball because the Strike Zone is quite limited. In other words, it’s about fairness—in short supply these days in the non-baseball world. Sense a theme emerging?
What about the Infield Fly Rule, one of my favorites. It says, in summary, that if there are men (or women) on first and second base, or the bases are loaded, and there are less than two out, if the batter pops the ball up so that it would be easy for an infielder to catch it, even without catching it, the batter is automatically called out by the umpires. Why? To prevent the infielder from intentionally dropping it and making an easy double or even triple play. Why this rule—again, I feel certain, to avoid cheating, so as not to allow the defensive team to get something for nothing. Refer to the theme noted above.
But baseball is not a namby-pamby sport with rules that enforce only “good” behavior. There are also ways to cheat, but within the boundaries of rules. For example, there is the possibility of “stealing a base.” Interestingly, this theft needs to occur in full view, is supervised by an umpire who calls the runner safe or out, and requires great skill as well as deception—unlike so much stealing that goes on in the larger world today which often requires simply greed, access to privileged knowledge and information, and invariably seriously harms the victims.
Baseball also places value on self-sacrifice. Another quality in short supply. With a runner on, say, first base, and less than two out, the batter can lay down a Sacrifice Bunt and by being thrown out at first move the runner along to second base. And with a runner on third, again with less than two outs, a fly ball caught by an outfielder counts as an Out, but as a result of the batter’s Sacrifice Fly the base runner can tag up and cross Home Plate thereby scoring a run.
And that’s where it begins and ends in baseball--at Home. Just as in life.
I grew up in Brooklyn at a time when the Dodgers were still there but perversely was a Yankee fan largely because my cousin Chuck, four years older than I, inspired me to do everything he did. As we said back then, I followed in his footsteps. And as a result got into the same kind of trouble he did. More about that later . . . maybe.
But rooting for the Yankees while living walking distance from Ebbets Field was in itself transgressive enough. I even lost a tooth, not a baby one, in a fight with Charlie Ehlers about who was the better center fielder--Duke Snyder or Mickey Mantle. Mantle was better but Charlie kept all his teeth.
I grew up, then, assuming that the Yankees would pretty much always win the pennant and most of the time the World Series. So you can imagine how depressed their current sorry state makes me. It’s bad, very bad.
But as an aspiring writer, well aware of some of the great literature with baseball as subject matter (from Ernest Hemmingway to John Updike to Bernard Malamud) I am attempting to get a grip on myself by thinking about some of the reason why baseball has had such metaphoric meaning for “serious” writers. This is also a version of avoidance behavior—taking something emotionally painful and dealing with it abstractly, dispassionately. This, of course, is one of my specialties.
These writers, better than anything I might be able to say, have plumbed those metaphors thoroughly, so in my attempt to divert myself I have been thinking about some of the idiosyncratic rules of baseball and how they not only illuminate aspects of the game but also how they reflect certain American values. At least some of the values that used to guide us.
Take four balls and three strikes. Why do the rules say you need only three strikes to be called Out but need one more, four, to earn a Walk? I think to level the playing field (forgive the baseball idiom) between the pitcher and batter in that it is more difficult to throw a strike than a ball because the Strike Zone is quite limited. In other words, it’s about fairness—in short supply these days in the non-baseball world. Sense a theme emerging?
What about the Infield Fly Rule, one of my favorites. It says, in summary, that if there are men (or women) on first and second base, or the bases are loaded, and there are less than two out, if the batter pops the ball up so that it would be easy for an infielder to catch it, even without catching it, the batter is automatically called out by the umpires. Why? To prevent the infielder from intentionally dropping it and making an easy double or even triple play. Why this rule—again, I feel certain, to avoid cheating, so as not to allow the defensive team to get something for nothing. Refer to the theme noted above.
But baseball is not a namby-pamby sport with rules that enforce only “good” behavior. There are also ways to cheat, but within the boundaries of rules. For example, there is the possibility of “stealing a base.” Interestingly, this theft needs to occur in full view, is supervised by an umpire who calls the runner safe or out, and requires great skill as well as deception—unlike so much stealing that goes on in the larger world today which often requires simply greed, access to privileged knowledge and information, and invariably seriously harms the victims.
Baseball also places value on self-sacrifice. Another quality in short supply. With a runner on, say, first base, and less than two out, the batter can lay down a Sacrifice Bunt and by being thrown out at first move the runner along to second base. And with a runner on third, again with less than two outs, a fly ball caught by an outfielder counts as an Out, but as a result of the batter’s Sacrifice Fly the base runner can tag up and cross Home Plate thereby scoring a run.
And that’s where it begins and ends in baseball--at Home. Just as in life.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
12:07 PM
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