Getting ready for some baseball
Pitchers and catchers reported last week.
To be more precise, the Pittsburgh Pirates are preparing to defend their newfound empire against all enemies, foreign (the Cincinnati Reds) and domestic (themselves).
With the Pirates heading to Bradenton (position players are scheduled to report today), I needed a diversion from the national political squabbles that are increasing with ferocity these days.
Baseball fills the bill, as they say.
It’s been four months, one week and one day (but who’s counting) since the Pirates dropped the fifth (and final) game of the 2013 National League Division series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Since about 10:47 PM on Oct. 9, I’ve had ample time to think about other things, if only I could.
Oh, there’ve been moments when I’ve had strong feelings about those goings-on in Washington. I’ve even written a column or two about them.
But this is baseball. Republicans or Democrats need not apply.
So here comes the 2014 edition of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
They’re no longer hapless, near cellar-dwellers. They’ve become a national treasure (pardon the hyperbole) overnight.
These long months away from the game have allowed me to take a measure of the sport.
I can’t, for instance, understand why it’s the only game where the defense initiates the action.
What would football be like if linebackers could chase quarterbacks before they got their hands on the ball?
I’ve also wondered why pitchers turn their backs on all of their teammates, except the catcher.
Are they being anti-social? Don’t they like their outfielders?
I hope I can find the answers to these questions before the Pirates play their home opener.
Then, there’s this nagging feeling I have about how unfair it is, that the offense only gets to use one player (the batter) at a time, while the defense has all nine players on the field.
Can you imagine the scores of basketball games if only one offensive player had to go the length of the court against five players?
Every game would probably go into overtime, after nobody scored within four quarters.
These are aspects of baseball that make it peculiar, but, to me, fascinating.
How come when the manager walks out to the mound, he only talks to the pitcher, but he ignores everybody else standing there. And none of the outfielders have any idea what’s going on. Do they think the pitcher and manager are talking behind their backs?
It’s just a thought.
Baseball, too, has lots of odd traditions.
Let’s look at the “Seventh Inning Stretch.” It’s something that only happens in baseball (since no other game has innings, I guess). There’s a bit of controversy about the origin of the practice of people standing up and singing a song (“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”), during the middle of seventh inning.
Some people believe it started at Manhattan College in the 19th Century, when the team’s coach noticed that student fans were getting restless.
There’s another theory that the seventh inning stretch took place at a Washington Senators game in 1910, in which President William Howard Taft, who’d grown a little sore while watching the game, simply stood up and stretched in the seventh inning. Dutiful fans, the story goes, followed suit.
Fortunately, President Taft didn’t run to the men’s room. Teams would be playing to empty stadiums during the bottom halves of seventh innings of every game today.
I have a proposal. Those of us, 60 years or older, should be allowed to have third inning stretches. We get sore much earlier than younger fans at ballparks.
Then there’s that other fan tradition that baffles me – “The Wave.”
I’ve been told that particular eccentricity was the result of a former co-worker of mine at Entertainment Tonight.
Robb Weller, who was a cheerleader at the University of Washington, claims he started the wave in the early 1970s.
I believe Robb’s claim. I just never engage in the wave.
Well, it’s only one month, one week, six days and about four hours, until they say “Play Ball!” (but who’s counting)
I’m ready.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net