I play basketball and love the sport and being a Canuck I'm crazy about hockey. With baseball, I'm so proficient (fastball that tops at 40mph probably but it's ok I change speeds and throws all my pitches with knuckball like effects - God clearly did not call me to be a ball player), I just watch the games (mostly the Jays). So I, myself, am shocked that I would say baseball is what I follow and probably get excited about most.
Just to be a bit more clear, I'm just saying baseball is the sport I am most captivated by, doesn't mean it's also my favourite. If I were to rank my top 3 sports based on love of the game (both as a fan and a player) it would be (1) Basketball, (2) Baseball, (3) Hockey. What would your top 3 be?
Have a good spring readers. See you at the ballpark!
No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined. ~Paul Gallico (from: http://www.quotegarden.com/baseball.html)
I love baseball. I played it competitively for 11 years, through high school, and I still follow my team closely (Tigers). I grew up with it. It's my dad's favorite game, and I picked it all up from him.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think the most profoundly wonderful part about baseball is that it is highly individualistic, while still being wholly a team sport. Baseball is a series of 1-on-1 matchups. Pitcher vs. Batter, Fielder vs. runner etc. We even have statistics to always show how good certain players are compared with others over a span of time. Yet, as good as some players are, they cannot win a game by themselves. Baseball is a team game. The greatest batters cannot win games without decent pitchers. The best pitchers still need a run to be batted in for them to win a game.
Baseball is beautifully simplistic on the surface, and yet frighteningly intricate on the mental and moment-to-moment level. It's a wonderful game. Although, personally, I'm still taking hockey over it ;)