Watching Baseball From A Long Way Away

Woops: Technical difficulties. Lost first version of this. Second may be short.

Although I like baseball highlights and the baseball playoffs I don’t like baseball that much. (And, no, I’m not a commie.)

Part of the problem is I didn’t play anything resembling organized baseball until Hayden, Colorado got a Little League team when i was 11 or so. I tried playing (to this day I don’t remember why I did that, but the fact I actually played in games meant there must not have been many players) but I never took to the game.

I never learned to judge a pitch as it left the pitcher’s hand and I never learned to judge where a fly ball was going to land. To this day, I remain impressed by people who run to where the ball will be. My strategy involved standing in one place and hoping the ball hit me.

Also, when I was growing up Colorado didn’t have a baseball team. By the time it did, I was living back in Kansas which still has no team. I therefore never had the chance to study the game they way I did the Denver Broncos and American Football.

To me baseball is still just two men with a ball taunting  a guy with a stick while a bunch of their friends watch and wait for something to do. Despite that, I respect the skill baseball players have and I even enjoy baseball documentaries. Heck, I even watched the documentary Knuckleball! when I was on a plane last year.

I also tend to watch baseball when something record breaking is about to happen. Back in 1995 I joined a group of friends to watch Cal Ripken, Jr. break Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak. What I remember most about that was how moved my friend, a Baltimore Orioles fan was, and how ESPN announcer Chris Berman stopped talking so everyone could enjoy the moment. To this day I’m grateful Bob Costas wasn’t the announcer. He’d still be talking.

Now, for the first time since my first semester at university, the Kansas City Royals actually have something to do in October other than find an open golf course. Unfortunately, the games are on when I’m at work and I can only watch them via game trackers on sports websites.

I think I like this way of watching baseball better than actually watching baseball.

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