Each MLB team counts down to the official start of the baseball season on its Twitter profile. Fans retweet their messages, favorite them and reply that they have missed America’s favorite pastime more than anything.
Why would anyone ever miss baseball?
Having grown up in Germany, I don’t get the sense of how 30,000-plus people can watch a pitcher throw a small, hard ball at a guy with a bat for three hours, with the potential that it lasts longer because none of the teams were able to pull ahead during the first nine innings. It’s hard to believe that a sport that features only two athletes interacting at any given moment is able to compete with the likes of the NFL for American fandom.
Football games are fast, eventful and action-packed. You wait to get a drink until the next commercial break comes around because you might miss the next important play.
Baseball is just as much as a sport as golf or chess. Yes, it takes talent and dedication to consistently hit a 90-mile-per-hour pitch — I couldn’t do it — and it takes skill to hurl the ball at that speed. But it’s not exhausting.
The only time someone really exercises is when the fielders are running back to their dugouts. Other than that, the team who is up to bat is, except for one person, sitting around and waiting, if not eating. I have never seen anybody sitting around while they were being paid for their sport before I watched baseball.
But there’s hope. If the batter finally hits the ball, some life is breathed into the game. The sleepy spectators spring to their feet, the commentators shout into their microphones and the batter starts running, albeit slowly.
But why should a baseball player run fast? He really doesn’t have to. When it’s a home run — what many are hoping for — he doesn’t have to go faster than a trot. And if he doesn’t hit one in a particular game, he has another 90 during the course of the season to make it happen. There’s plenty of time, as games are often pushed to extra innings.
Players know they won’t lose the attention of their fans, as even during the offseason they have plenty of favorites on Twitter.
Alex is a freshman studying journalism and a staff writer for The Post. Think he needs to make it out to the ballpark this summer? Email him at am794811@ohiou.edu.
