Does watching baseball count as watching television, and why does it matter?

How many baseball games do you watch? If you’re reading this post, it’s probably a lot. Thanks to the blessing of the baseball gods, a miracle called MLB.TV allows me to watch most of the Reds games from afar. I also turn on most Nats games on the television, although I admit that when the Reds are playing at the same time, I am not as aware of what is going on in the Nats games.

But do the three and a half hours of baseball a night count as watching television? To me, “watching television” is something people do that is disengaged, an activity (irony intended) that consists of sitting down and vegging. Watching baseball, on the other hand, requires active engagement in the action on the screen, thinking about each situation, possible strategies and outcomes, and what-should-have-been-done when the desired result is not achieved.

The live element to baseball makes it different – it’s real, and it’s happening in realtime. People might argue that American Idol – which is definitely “television” – is live and the people are real and it’s happening in realtime, but it’s also scripted, and let’s face it, the show’s fans are not knowledgeable about music. No one is sitting on his couch asking, “Is the guy gonna hit the B flat?” Baseball is “Are they gonna hit and run? Is he gonna throw a change up here? Is he gonna pinch hit for the lefty?” Granted, not all fans are asking these questions during the game, and most don't do it at every pitch. But it happens enough.

Another aspect of watching a baseball game that makes it different from television is that its meandering pace allows one to partake in other activities while simultaneously paying attention to the game. I often read, write, or suffer through social media engagement while the game is on. Sometimes I clean, sometimes I take the laptop to the kitchen and cook. Nobody listens to a game on the radio without doing something else – why should a screen make it different?

So why does it matter?

This country spends an average of 3.5 hours per day in front of the tube. That’s A LOT of time spent being unproductive members of society. Now, everyone needs some time to rest and relax in between the hours of the serfdom we call employment in modern America. But 3.5 hours per day of nothingness? After 8 hours of work, an hour of commuting, an hour of getting ready (shower, shave, dressing), 7 hours of sleep, and an hour of fooding, plus time in the bathroom and all the other things we have to do every day? That’s most of your limited free time doing nothing! What’s the point of even working for a living if you’re going to cease to exist when you aren’t working?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm different. Maybe others who watch baseball do it from a couch with a remote in hand. Maybe they are disengaged. But having baseball on the television sure feels a heck of a lot more distinct, more active, and more involved than a bunch of B-grade celebrities dancing in front of a panel of judges. Maybe I'm just biased.

I’d like to see a study of brain activity of someone who watches a three and a half hour baseball game versus someone who watches three hours of Honey Boo Boo, Pawn Stars, and that other mindless nonsense that passes for entertainment these days. (It would also be interesting to compare brain activity of those watching other sports.) Neuroscientists, get it done.

The Persistence of Memory

While searching for new resources to use for work, especially those which deal with social science, stats, and social media, I came across a blog with a title that would make a lot of people run away: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. At first I thought it would make me run away, too – statisticians aren’t the most engaging writers, for the most part (you know it’s true, statheads) – but I found enough material of interest to keep me scrolling through it.

One post in particular gave reason to pause for thought.

“Last summer my wife and I took a 3.5-month vacation that included a wide range of activities. When I got back, people would ask “what were the highlights or your trip?”, and I was somewhat at a loss: we had done so many things that were so different, many of which seemed really great…how could I pick? Someone said, wisely, that in six months or a year I’d be able to answer the question because some memories would be more vivid than others. They were right, and I was recently thinking back on our vacation and putting together a list of highlights — enjoyable in itself, but also worth doing to help plan future vacations.”

I thought how true that is about memories. He goes on to talk about the things he remembers about track events at the London Olympics, and it made me think about how many baseball games I’ve been to versus my actual memories of games.

I’ve been told my people that I tend to remember more details about events than the average bear, which has served to fuel my curiosity about the human memory, a very flawed but fascinating part of existence. Especially intriguing are the studies that show how easily people can be led to believe they have memories of things that never happened.

Baseball leaves a lot of room for false memories. So much is happening – who’s up, who’s pitching, what’s the count, how many outs, where are the fielders positioned, what pitches are thrown, what’s the score, who’s on deck, etc. – that it is easy to misremember how something actually happened.

I think some of our greatest memories aren’t memories at all but are stuck in our heads because we’ve seen videos or photographs of the event over and over again. If I didn’t know the Game Six homer by Fisk happened a year and four months before I was born, I’d probably think I actually remembered it. Now I’m starting to doubt if I really remember the Bruce homer that clinched the 2010 Central Division for the Reds or if that iconic Topps baseball card is what makes it so vivid.

One of my greatest baseball memories happened last year in Washington. The Phillies were in town and it was E$PN’s Sunday Night Baseball. We were six rows behind the Phillies dugout, about even with third base. Cole Hamels, who had earlier indicated he would peg Bryce Harper, followed through on his threats, and Harper was awarded first.

Here are the things I remember:

1. The Hamels pitch hitting Harper. I don’t remember exactly where it hit him anymore. I remember the sound of it hitting him. Or I think I remember it. Would I remember it better if I saw the video of it? Would it remind me of something that’s already in my head? Or would I be learning something new and posing it as a memory?

2. Harper standing on third base. I don’t remember how he got there. Chris and I discussed it the other day and neither one of us remembered it. We said we thought he stole one of the bases, but we didn’t know which one, and we could think that because we want it to be true. However it happened, he was on third and I do remember that rather vividly, even commenting about how big a lead he was taking.

3. Harper stealing home. I only remember the running and some vague image of a slide. I think he slid, but that could be a false memory. I definitely remember the running.

What I remember most is the feeling of it all. Harper showed up the loud-mouthed veteran in the best possible manner. There was excitement, animosity, and a sense of justice watching the whole thing go down. Those feelings are real, moreso than the images I have in my mind.

It’s funny to think about now, in this age of the incessant barrage of video and imagery we are faced with. Based on those studies of false memories, you have to wonder if our brains are even capable of telling the difference between what we see and reality. Given that conspiracy theories are all the rage these days, I’m leaning on the no side.

Bring back the written word!

Last week the Cincinnati Enquirer published a rather odd slideshow about The Bunt that Reds Manager Extraordinaire called on Opening Day. He essentially pulled the bat out of the hands of both Brandon Phillips, the bunter, and Joey Votto, since having an open base was an invitation to walk him. But the point of this post is not to “second guess” Dusty, as the complaints about the complaints go. It was the way the information was presented, using a slideshow of photos that weren’t very relevant to the play, with captions that were just broken bits of what could have been a great article. (Unfortunately I can't find it again to link to it.)

I immediately pictures some editor in the Enquirer office who hasn’t quite gotten this whole internet thing but is aware enough to know photos attract pageviews. He’s staring at the original article – words on a screen – asking his staff how they could make the article (which he doesn’t understand because there are too many numbers) better. Some intern who has no hope in hell of ever getting a job at a newspaper screams “Photos!” The editor says “Great idea. Someone throw something together.”

Seriously, the slideshow was that dumb, no better word to describe it. Dumb, because it represents what the internet has become. Dumb. Everything is about images; no one reads anymore. It’s like one neverending children’s picture book. See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane and all of society collapsing.

Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words could not have envisioned the vapidness of the internet. An old photo of an aged, retired Earl Weaver sitting at a pre-game ceremony of some sort doesn’t tell a story at all, especially not one about how he hated the bunt. The only story this slideshow told was the one about the decline of newspapers and reading in general. This is the internet today, the tldr; age.

That brings me to instagram. Oh how I loathe instagram, loathe the terrible shots people share, loathe the fact that people think they are good shots in the first place. Instagram is a photographer’s nightmare, a wasteland of bad coloration, fuzzy focus, and a graininess that I guess is supposed to represent nostalgia, when we didn’t have this awesome, high-resolution technology to capture reality as it truly looks. Seriously folks, we live in an HD world. Why on earth would you willingly go back to the days of poor technology?

Ugh. So much complaining here at the church. But come on, people! Stop rejecting beautiful things! Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder; it’s in the brain. We seem to have a collective mental disease these days. We’ve discarded the sacred for the profane.

That dumb slideshow ruined a good article (and wasted one of my allotted 20 free ones.) But that’s all I have to say about that.

Baseball's Best Fans(TM)

I started laughing.

How could you not? We made our mortal enemies look like fools, made their supporters flee to the exits, heads shaking with disgust.

Things had been rather dull for a couple of hours; the newest crusader for King Castellini had partaken in heinous acts of ugliness, putting the entire operation in peril. He clearly had troubles with that fiery orb hanging at a strange angle in the Midwestern April afternoon, and the evil denizens of Taint Louis, Misery wasted no opportunity to mock him. Beezlebub, identified by the mark of the beast tattooed on his neck, had used his evil powers to direct light into the eyes of the newbie, not once, but twice, causing him to drop two flies which led to three runs. That was enough to send the red demons into a frenzy.

But karma's a bitch. Consider this:

1.Shin-Soo Choo walks.
2.Chris Heisey pops out to second baseman Daniel Descalso.With Joey Votto batting, wild pitch by Mitchell Boggs, Shin-Soo Choo to 2nd.
3.Mitchell Boggs intentionally walks Joey Votto.
4.Brandon Phillips doubles (4) on a soft line drive to right fielder Carlos Beltran. Shin-Soo Choo scores. Joey Votto to 3rd.
5.Mitchell Boggs intentionally walks Jay Bruce.
6.Todd Frazier walks. Joey Votto scores. Brandon Phillips to 3rd. Jay Bruce to 2nd.
7.Jack Hannahan singles on a ground ball to shortstop Pete Kozma, deflected by third baseman Matt Carpenter. Brandon Phillips scores. Jay Bruce to 3rd. Todd Frazier to 2nd.
8.Ryan Hanigan reaches on a fielding error by shortstop Pete Kozma. Jay Bruce scores. Todd Frazier to 3rd. Jack Hannahan to 2nd.
9.Cesar Izturis singles on a line drive to right fielder Carlos Beltran. Todd Frazier scores. Jack Hannahan to 3rd. Ryan Hanigan to 2nd.
10.Shin-Soo Choo doubles (2) on a line drive to left fielder Shane Robinson. Jack Hannahan scores. Ryan Hanigan scores. Cesar Izturis scores.
11.Chris Heisey grounds out, second baseman Daniel Descalso to first baseman Allen Craig. Shin-Soo Choo to 3rd.
12.Joey Votto singles on a sharp ground ball to left fielder Shane Robinson. Shin-Soo Choo scores.
13.Brandon Phillips walks. Joey Votto to 2nd.
14.Jay Bruce singles on a ground ball to second baseman Daniel Descalso, deflected by pitcher Marc Rzepczynski. Joey Votto to 3rd. Brandon Phillips to 2nd.
15.Todd Frazier called out on strikes.

That was the ninth inning, the one that began at a 4-4 tie and ended at 13-4 after 15 batters went to the plate. Wild pitches. Bases loaded walks. Errors. Deflected balls. Infield singles. Every ugly thing in baseball happened that inning. The Deadbirds of Taint Louis, Misery had been vanquished.

So how could you not laugh?

Baseball Brief: Perfection

We had the Giants-Los Angeles Bankees game on one screen and the Taint Louis-Whoever-they-were-playing game on another when  the guys sitting at the table behind us at Lou’s asked to switch to Texass-Asstros. I thought, ugh, why watch these teams from the epicenter of the apocalypse state? But they said Darvish was pitching a perfect game so we immediately agreed.

Perfect. The only sport where perfection can exist. But it’s not really perfection, is it? No pitcher has ever thrown all strikes in a game!

Of course, everyone knows what happened on Batter 27 – a weak grounder up the middle and Darvish was out of the game. The two previous outs had been the same but for their locations. A game of inches, they call it. How about a nanometer? How about if the rotation of the ball turned one more stitch? Would that be enough to push the grounder to the shortstop instead of hopping over the bag? See, there’s no such thing as a perfect game. It’s just perfect luck!

And that’s what makes the game…perfect.

Baseball Brief: Opening Day

I didn’t go to work.

I can’t remember having ever worked on Opening Day. I take it off every year and celebrate the holiday as it should be celebrated: with carefree liberty. The 4pm start time for the Reds was a bit weird, but I was able to watch the Nats game because of it. It was kind of dull. Strasburg was efficient with his pitches, throwing 81 over seven innings. Inefficiency was something I had complained about all of last season when he had trouble getting through six innings in so many of his starts, so it was nice to see him breeze through the game. Bryce Harper hit two homers on his first Opening Day in the majors. Other than that, it wasn’t a spectacular baseball game, largely because the Marlins are not an exciting team and they have hideous uniforms. That’s very important, you know. Ugly uniforms make for ugly games, right? Right?

But the Reds-Angels game – now that was intense! Cueto, probably the most underrated pitcher in the game, made one mistake but otherwise shut down the best lineup in baseball, and it seemed to pump up the entire team. The whole game had a level of intensity you usually find in September playoff races; it felt like we were getting a preview of what we could see in the World Series. Thirteen innings! What a game!

What was really great, too, was the fact that we have a bar to go to with fellow Reds fans. I’d say there were at least 15 of us at the Bottom Line. It was nice to see some familiar faces and to meet new Reds fans, too. I hope we can pack the place as the season wears on. Everyone was so excited to see the team that we clapped after every out for at least the first couple of innings. Heck, someone probably did it for each out in the game. But it wasn't rambunctious noise. It was polite, controlled clapping, like we had been doing it all our lives. And haven't we?

This is going to be a fun season.

Data with soul

So I went on another trip abroad and missed the end of the World Baseball Classic. I would say this was worth it:

It's the town of Amalfi, Italy. Despite Italy's impressive performance in the WBC, I saw no evidence of baseball on the Amalfi Coast.

But I didn't care. I dismissed the world for ten days, disconnected myself from social media and the news, got away from everything in my life except Chris. That included baseball. However, the Reds weren't totally out of my mind:

I missed nothing but my office's fantasy baseball draft. I've never participated in fantasy baseball, probably because I wouldn't do very well since I am totally biased towards the Reds. But this year I was considering it because I work at a political research firm where everything is about numbers, and there are many passionate baseball fans, including two other Reds fans in addition to myself. The draft passed, however, while I was eating pasta and sipping cappuccinos by the Mediterranean. Oh darn.

Fantasy sports are pretty strange to me in that people devote so much time, energy, and money into something that isn't real. Baseball, a game of numbers, was the first, of course, with football mimicking that of our superior sport. I've never been much of a numbers person. To me, they are naked ideas, raw and soulless. I prefer words, words dressed in style, in substance, words that indicate emotions and spirituality and that which makes us human. There is this trend - big data, data analysis, data mapping, data visualization - that is all the rage among those who are soldiers in the technological revolution. We think we're so advanced because we can communicate instantaneously and print weapons and avoid lines at the grocery. But really we've lost the soul of things. We've deified data at the expense of human truth. Once words had meaning. Now everything seems to be a series of ones and zeroes. That's great if you're a starting pitcher, not so much if you're a poet.

This may sound stupid, but baseball seems like the intersection of numbers and words. Baseball numbers aren't naked; they wear shiny uniforms and colorful caps and aren't afraid to get grass stains and dirt marks on their pants. They are painted on walls and engraved on plaques. 4192. 715. 2131. It makes sense that fantasy baseball is a part of the game. Fantasy baseball is science for the art of science. The art. Data with soul.

But it isn't reality. Reality is the plain white plane surrounded by carts and carts of supplies for Syrian refugees we saw at the airport in Istanbul. Reality is the bullet holes we saw in the buildings of Beirut. Reality is the Italians we saw preparing for the upcoming tourist season and the cappuccinos we sipped by the Mediterranean and the hardened bodies we saw in Pompei, bodies that had been smothered and buried by the lava of Vesuvius in 79AD. And reality is the memories we make with the people we care about while sitting at a baseball game.

So don't sit too long in front of your spreadsheets and forget to enjoy the game!

Why are Team USA's hats a different color blue than their shirts?

Team USA lost last night.

I've been watching some of the games of the World Baseball Classic, though I haven't been able to catch them all. The lack of interest by Americans is once again disappointing.

Citizens of other countries are pumped about the #WBC. That Domincan Republic vs Venezuela game was great - very intense, very impassioned. The announcers said that much of those countries had shut down, as everyone was watching with their hearts on their sleeves. I wish it could be that way here.

Initially, I kind of wanted Venezuela to lose because of Hugo Chavez, WHO WAS NOT A dEMOCRAT (that's a small D, folks) and I was tired of hearing how great he was when he wasn't. I despise dictators of all stripes, even those who were seemingly elected, and Chavez managed to pull the wool over the eyes of far too many people as he exploited the poor for power. But that line of thinking led me down a stream of other thoughts about the countries involved in the WBC and how very different our circumstances are.

I've lived in four countries outside of the US for at least three month stints and have managed to make it to five of the six habitable continents, so I've seen a lot  of other cultures. The one continent I've missed thus far is the one on which Hugo Chavez made his life. (Hoping to rectify that with a trip to Machu Picchu in the autumn, if everything works out.) Until 2011 I didn't know much about that part of the world. Then I got a job with an international media think tank, which didn't work out, so I moved to a political research and strategy firm, the one who worked for the Venezuelan opposition candidate against Chavez in October. So I got to learn a thing or two about Venezuela.

Chavez's socialism - the real kind, not the Fox-News-crowd mutation of the word - did pull millions of people out of poverty, and by millions I'm talking more than twenty million. But the people are still poor and the country has one of the lowest rates of economic growth in the region. Chavez ruled the country for fourteen years - half the life of most of Team Venezuela's players; most of them probably grew up poor like their fellow citizens. I don't have the time or energy to research right now, but I imagine it's the same for a lot of the players on the latino teams. And I wonder if that's why they seem more connected to their people and the people to them.

I'm not a flagwaver; the concept of nations is an artificial construct and borders are good for nothing but division. Still, I like the idea of international competition and athletes representing the places they are from, playing for a community of people, a communion of souls. I like the intensity with which the latino teams play. I like the enthusiasm of their fans. I like how the players go out of their way to play for their countries. I wish the Americans would do that. We aren't fielding the best team we could because some players just don't want to take part. Look at those Puerto Ricans charging out to the mound like they just won the World Series. They just advanced to the next round, but they are pumped, and their fans are going crazy. The stadium for the US game is silent and empty. The team itself seems lifeless.

But not as lifeless as the attention being paid to the tournament by our citizens. In front of us is an international tournament for a game we perfected, what we once called our national pastime, yet that USA stitched upon the chests of our team elicits indifference. Too bad, because this would be a perfect opportunity for citizen unity. We lack a spirit of community. We have this erroneous notion that we are better than everyone else that causes us to miss out on so many things. Like international competitions. We have nothing to unite around; there is no event that we come together as a nation to root for. Baseball is our sport, but we've discarded it as a country because we no longer have the attention span for it?

And why can't we have hats that match the uniforms?