JackRiddler wrote:Joe Hillshoist wrote:Thats actually a fascinating observation Jack. Kind of like a map and territory thing, tho perhaps the only thing missing is the feeling of tension, or lack of it.
Well, you're not into it.
There is enormous tension once you know the game. Every situation in every inning can mean the win, though this only becomes obvious in the late innings. To succeed players have to be fanatical on every play. The other famous aspect I didn't mention is the game's measure of time, not continuously on a clock, but discretely in outs and innings. It really never is over until the final play. The comebacks in baseball are impossible in any other sport that I know of, certainly in any with a clock. This is also true of the season, since there are 162 games in the major leagues. So a 10-game deficit can still be overcome even with a month or two (out of six) to go. One man on a sudden hot streak can turn around a whole team. This allows a lot of space for hope and delusion in the fan. Despite the unusual number of spectacular comebacks, for every comeback story there are a great many more close calls. The elimination and championship structure is still such that hope is crushed 29 times out of 30, statistically speaking. If a 10-game deficit can be overcome, then that also means a dominant team can collapse just as spectacularly. There is a legend of long-term suffering attached to pretty much every team except the Yankees, Cardinals and Marlins. (Maybe the Dodgers, since they've been in LA.) The devotee of any of the other 27 teams can tell you a highly particular story of memorable failure, outrageous moments of fate and how each of them acquired a fatalist worldview; although fans of the Cubs, Red Sox, Phillies, Indians, old Brooklyn Dodgers and Mets are in a special league of pain. There was a funny movie about this called Game Six, written by Don DeLillo with Robert Downey and Michael Keaton.
The tension, well lack of it, I meant to attribuite to this quote but somehow got confused...
Every situation can be described precisely in a set of numbers, every pitch produces meaningfully quantifiable results, and most everything that happens can be attributed to individuals' play. Every run and every inning has a story that you can reconstruct from the recorded numbers 100 years later. It's kind of nuts, actually.
Another thing I like generally is this:
It really never is over until the final play. The comebacks in baseball are impossible in any other sport that I know of, certainly in any with a clock.
I've been involved in some pretty spectacular comebacks over the years when I played various sports. There's a mentality that goes with them - a refusal to lose that can come out even in games that are timed. I'd say that tennis and squash are a bit like baseball - or a bit like ... anyone can come back if they want. I've seen some spectacular comebacks in tennis in games that have ended up lasting hours and hours. It makes for great spectacles.