Against All Odds
(Baseball Cartoon Book by Robert A. Tiritilli and Charles S. Hellman)
If you’ve loved baseball long enough, you run into the ubiquitous question by curious friends — “Why do you love baseball so much?” And without batting an eyelash, the second statement almost always is — “When I watch it on ESPN, it looks really boring.”
I’ve come up with my share of answers but for some reason, I’ve never really been able to convince people what is there to love in this game. And if you can’t come up with a good answer against a Brazilian passionate about football or soccer (depends where in the world you are), or a Filipino addicted to Barangay Ginebra, better to just smile the question away, than make a fool of yourself and confuse them even more.
After some serious thought, I’ve come up with a simple answer: baseball is about overcoming odds. And if you wanna add some drama into it you can say: “Baseball is all about overcoming overwhelming odds — all stacked against you.” It’s the ultimate underdog story.
As if in a courtroom, this lawyer submits the following evidence:
Evidence 1: The pitcher has 4 chances to make a mistake for the batter to get a free base. You as the batter have 3 chances not to get yourself out. Pitcher 1, Batter 0.
Evidence 2: The pitcher knows, or at least has a plan, as to where the pitch is going. You have none. You’re up there guessing with the pitcher, and even worse, second-guessing yourself. Pitcher 2, Batter 0.
Evidence 3: Sometimes, the pitcher doesn’t have an idea of where the baseball is going. This puts fear into your head as the baseball itself can end up in your head. You go from being the hunter to becoming the bulls-eye in one tenths of a second. Pitcher 3, Batter 0.
Evidence 4: As arguably the greatest pure hitter of all time, Ted Williams said: “The hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a round ball with a round bat — square.” Cricket, the pride and passion of countries in over four continents, does have round balls but uses square bats. That’s why their scoring reaches into the hundreds, and their top games last for days. In baseball if you hit the top part of the ball, it’s a groundout, and if you hit the bottom, it’s a popup. And if you do hit it square — middle on middle — that still doesn't guarantee anything. Pitcher 4, Batter 0.
Evidence 5: Baseball is one of the few sports I know where it’s one against nine. It’s one batter — you — against nine defenders. In basketball, it’s five against five. If you can’t get a shot off, you can have your teammates set picks for you. If you do get the shot off and miss the shot, you still have four others to get the rebound and fix your mistake. In football/soccer, it’s eleven against eleven. In ice hockey, there is a designated goon that serves as the star player’s bodyguard. In baseball, you have your bat, your helmet, and your cup. Pitcher 13, Batter 0.
At this point — just to get on base — the batter overcomes 13 simultaneous odds stacked against him. If you watch Major League Baseball and the batter is playing in hostile territory, the noise you hear and the hostility you experience is 50,000 rabid fans paying their hard-earned money, just to see you fail. Pitcher 50,013, Batter 0.
And when you see that ball and hit it out cleanly for a home run followed by a second of silence?... Priceless.