BEER + PEANUTS + BASEBALL = FUN

A lot of people say they don't like baseball. They say its, "too boring, too slow, too long, or too quiet when they flip by it when watching television. I tend to disagree. Not because I'm biased (even though baseball is my favourite sport, so I guess I am), but because I believe that most people are too lazy or perhaps even too stupid to realize the greatness of the game. Baseball takes patience, knowledge of the game's history and an ability to comprehend and then understand a multitude of real-time variables - in order to appreciate and ultimately enjoy it. It doesn't just involve running and jumping/skating/or running as fast as you can with a ball/puck/or football towards a goal/net/or white line on the ground. There's an infield, a mound, a rubber, three bases, a plate, a screwball, base paths, a warning track, the most statistics, a skipper, ball girls, two dug-outs, and a foul (should be called fair) pole. Nobody wants to see a sacrifice fly or a pitcher setting up a batter with a high inside fastball - nor do they want to take the time to understand its significance to the outcome of the game. I love it when a batter steps out of the box because the pitcher is disrupting his timing, or how a runner on second can steal the catcher's signs and relay them back to the batter to gain a slight advantage. I can't wait to see the take out slide at second, the brush-back, suicide-squeeze and secondary lead. I thoroughly enjoy the tension and subsequent stare down after the retaliatory hitting of another team's batsman, and the potential of an awkward yet always entertaining clearing of the benches - especially when the bull-pens run in from right and left fields to partake in the brawl, or for some reason the coaches get involved. Baseball is the only sport that takes a total team effort to win, but where the one-on one battle can decide the game. Enjoying baseball takes a deep understanding of tradition, old-school beliefs, and a willingness to sit through a scoreless, three hour pitching duel on a hot and humid late August day - in order to fully soak in it's awesomeness (and a serious sun burn). These unique characteristics of America's pastime (even though the origins are believed to have developed from cricket in England) are what, in my mind set baseball apart from the other flash and dash North American sports. For instance, baseball is the only sport that is as equally if not more exciting to listen to on the radio as it is to watch on television - or in person for that matter. Baseball is the only sport where vaseline and cork are used to cheat. At the old ball game is the only place where a four year old kid can catch a ball hit or thrown by a player, and where a player can fall on a kid while catching a ball hit or thrown by a player. Baseball is where Ernie Harwell knew which city the fan in left field hailed from. "That one was caught by a fan from Kalamazoo." Also, I've never heard of an alcohol ban at a basketball game, or the fans throwing basketballs and pucks at the players, but I have at a baseball game. So, after all this, you may ask, "Why don't people give baseball a chance, because from what it sounds like to me, baseball is an exciting, strategic, extremely skillful game that, with every play comes the opportunity for something unique and as equally bizarre to happen, unlike any other sport?" You'll never hear of someone in hockey scoring on an attempted-drag-bunt-wild-pitch-slide-to-first-two-base-throwing-error-wave-around-third-with-a-head-first-knock-out-collision-slide-at-home plate. Will ya? However, and again unlike any other sport, you may have to wait for the good stuff. It doesn't always happen and it may not happen. Baseball does not possess the gratuitous action of the other high-flying sport. No alley-oops, one-timers, or hail marys. Instead, baseball has the reliever starting to warm up, an on-deck circle, chewing tobacco and the in-field fly rule. As a spectator or viewer, the baseball fan must earn their "action" with dedication, alertness, passion and patience. That's what separates the baseball fan from fans of other sports. It's the detailed idiosyncrasies of the game that keep us wildly entertained (many a times to other's disbelief) in between the "action." (eg. Grand Slam, diving catch, triple-play, stealing of home, etc.) It might take 12 1/3 innings or it might take 2 batters. But, eventually, every baseball fan knows that something has to happen (Unless the game's rained out or forfeited because fans from the home team were throwing mini-bats on the field and starting fights in the bleachers). Most people these days are more into the pre-game powder-puff fluff of a King James, the useless waste of time mostly-hugging usually-falling hockey fight and the moronic end zone antics of any number of the high profile receivers in the NFL. You'll never see a baseball player slamming another player in a shitty rap song, but you will see former Blue Jays Jesse Barfield and Lloyd Moseby rapping terribly and hilariously about baseball. You'll never see a baseball player arrested for gun possession or murder, but you will see a now-wealthy Latin player extorted for money in Cuba. The closest baseball has to a prima donna is Manny being Manny - and I love everything he does. Sure we have (maybe now, had) steroids, dickhead Barry Bonds and pretty boy yet still elite player A-Roid, but what do you expect? A handful of idiots compared to entire leagues of juiced up/egotistical/father of ten freaks. Not a bad ratio. The baseball season is 162 games long, from April to October, and then another month and a half of intense play-off baseball. The season starts outside in the cold and ends outside in the cold. Baseball players play twice as many games as hockey and basketball players and ten times more than football players. (Sure, a football game is a tad more violent and aggressive than baseball, but an inning can last 45 minutes and a game 5 hours!) The grueling nature of the baseball season must take its toll, however, the, 'steroid era," temporarilty tainted my love for the game. But I'm over it now. Barry, Sammy, Canseco, McGwire, Palmeiro and the Rocket are gone, (Pudge and Pettite are still here, but did steroids really help them?) and baseball is again being played how it should be. Gritty, hard-nosed, tough-pitching, most times small ball sometimes long ball, instead of muscle bound monsters smashing tiny white balls into space. I'm not sure why I love baseball so much, maybe it's because of my Dad, maybe its because not too many people like it (probably not), but I do know that if you gave me some peanuts, a cold beer (maybe 2) and a ball game, I'll thoroughly explain to you the importance of a good set up man, the lefty vs. lefty match up, what ERA stands for and how you figure out a third baseman's baseman's batting average. Play Ball!