Baseball from Alien Eyes

Two or so weeks ago, a few days before a dear friend of mine returned home to Czech Republic after four years in the United States, we had a going away party for him in my office. Before I get to the baseball part of this story, I have to explain something, so please bear with me.

When I started working at my organization nearly three years ago, we had thirty people in our office. Aside from three executive managers, we had five senior program officers, a bunch of level one program officers, a very interesting receptionist (who is a story in herself), and junior staff, also known as assistants - among us were the Czech, an Uzbek, an Iraqi, a Morman, and a girl from Philly, along with myself.

We had a happy hour bunch, which included those mentioned above, plus two of the program officers - a Russian and a Tennessean - who attended our drunken lime-throwing buckets-of-Corona-drinking engagements. The happy hour crowd would also be a part of another kind of happy hour - the four o'clock Fridays in the conference room.

Yeah, back in the day when we had a smaller office, there would be an impromptu purchase of beers for consumption in the conference room. In attendence would usually be our Head of Finance, a bearded man who graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio in the seventies and is a huge baseball fan; our Asia Program Officer, who is not Asian but who is a huge baseball fan (Red Sox); our Eurasia Program Officer, who is a Canadian and very Scottish; the Russian, who is currently temporarily deported to Moscow due to our country's stupid immigration policies these days (and who's more American than I am, despite my birth certificate); the Iraqi, who now works for the War Department (who's also more American than I am); the Uzbek, who like me is desperately seeking a new job; the Tennessean, who went to work on a Senate campaign in TN last year; and sometimes our Executive Director, an admitted ex-hippy who would have gone to Woodstock had his friend's Volkswagon not broken down on the way there.

When I discovered these little gatherings, I thought I had found the perfect job. And I had, for the first year. Stories would be exchanged about various overseas encounters, and you could measure a good time when people started breaking out the various alcohols they had been given as gifts from business trips, some of them better than others. The night people broke into our office, they had quite a party.

Our organization began to grow. New people were hired to fill new positions, people who just didn't get the spirit of the conference room. There is one, a Uruguayan-German who grew up in Costa Rica, who has the spirit, but not too many others. The conference room gatherings stopped.

The Czech's going away party was a temporary departure from the lack, or maybe a return to old times. We gathered in the conference room to say goodbye, but the newbies in charge of getting the beer didn't get enough, so our Head of Finance guy, the Czech, the Russian, the Uruguayan-German, and a girl from Virginia (a new hire) who went to UD, as well as myself went to a bar. That's where the baseball debate began.

More than a month removed from the World Cup, the enthusiasm still flows from the hearts of those who grew up in more distant parts of the globe. Now, before I start sounding like I am against soccer, I should tell you I was a pretty decent goalkeeper back in the day. (In fact, last week I randomly came across a link to the Ohio High Schools Girls Soccer records and discovered I was number 2 in the state in all time saves for a goalkeeper, even though they spelled my name incorrectly. I gave up caring about that stuff lightyears ago, but it was pretty amusing to see.) I coached for five years after I graduated, including one year as junior varsity coach. So I know my stuff. But when someone who has grown up with football, who sees baseball through alien eyes, starts bashing my sport, well, debate!

Fortunately, our Head of Finance and the Virginian who went to UD were on my side. The three of us were sitting in a booth surrounding the Russian while the Czech and the Uruguayan-German watched in amusement. And the Russian said that horrid sentence, "Baseball is boring."

It's difficult to begin when you're trying to defend your game from those blasphemous words. We've all heard them spoken; we've all wanted to burn people at the stake for them. We know games can be boring. We play 162 games, not missing a single one of the hottest days of the year. We can see games where no one scores. We can see games where the other team scores 15 runs against us. We've all been bored during games, even the most diehard of us (and I think if we read or write blogs, we are considered diehards, right?) But baseball boring? Soccer (football) is not?

If you think about it and understand both games, the two games are equal in "boringness." I am fascinated, even to the point of obsession, with the triangles of football. All I can see are the triangles on the field (the passing lanes made between three players.) I don't see the "boringness," unless the game consists of players bunching up and destroying the triangles. But really, what right does a football fan have to call any sport "boring"? The same level of strategy is involved. Yeah, football players run for 90 minutes - you can't have any Kruks playing striker, but could they hit a Billy Wagner fastball? Do they know that on a 1-2 count, throw a particular batter an outside breaking ball and he'll swing for a K? Do they understand why a lefty has to go against a lefty, why the runners go on a two out, 3-2 pitch, why the infield plays in when there are less than two outs and a runner on third?

Neither sport is better than the other in the sports sense. Now, in the poetic sense? That's a different story. I could write all day about lazy summer days eating hotdogs and drinking cold, pisswater beer, root, root, rooting for the home team, stepping on the squishy stuff at Riverfront, standing for two strikes with two outs, game tying home runs, fireworks, getting out of a jam, the beauty of an outfielder throwing out a runner at home, fist pumping from a caught stealing, shattered bats, double plays, symmetry, glory walls, closer falls, balls that sail into the night under the incandescent light, holding breath, hope, hope, hope. Sorry, football dudes, you don't have the same shots of heart attack inducing adrenaline after you've been sitting for two hours watching nothing happening. You don't have the anticipation, the rising sense that your team just may win, even if it's down by three in the eighth, even if they've only had two hits all night. You don't have "momentum" where you just feel like your team is going to end up with a victory. You don't have intangibles or stuff or makeup. You're kicking a ball around in triangles. Yeah, you could hold your breath underwater for an eternity longer than Kruk, but by god, you are no ballplayer.

The Russian and I, with everyone else pretty much looking on, had this argument. And what came out of it? My pity for him. Growing up with baseball is a gift, a blessing, and the poor aliens who don't understand it, or refuse to understand it, are missing out on something beautiful.

I took the Czech and the Uruguayan-German to a Nats game last year. We had fun. It was the Czech's first and probably only game he'll ever attend, but I think he understood that there is more to baseball than just swinging a bat. But can one who does not grow up with it ever truly understand the beauty of the game, the nostalgia for the innocence of childhood, of spending time with families, of wasting your life watching baseball and loving every second of it? I don't know. But god, the feelings one has when your team is in a playoff race, the hope you feel...isn't it worth every bit of it?

Yes, I think so.