Baseball is weird
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Dodgers punched their ticket to the National League Championship Series to take on the New York Mets. Suffice it to say, I’m pumped. Ever since we (and by we I mean them, the pro athletes) won the World Series in 2020, the Dodgers have struggled in the postseason, exiting in the first round three straight years. So when the team was pushed to a game 5, do or die game, I desperately hoped this year wouldn’t result in the same. 9 innings and 2 home runs by guys who share a last name later, and the Dodgers were in the NL Championship once again. Order was restored, crying babies ceased their weeping, and world hunger, well that’s still around but hey, the Dodgers are back baby so who cares.
The Dodgers playoff series win reminded me of the strange rituals of baseball. If you knew nothing of baseball before, you would think that the Dodgers won the championship the way they celebrated in the locker room. Bottles were popped, beer was poured on each other, all in celebration of making it to the NL Championship. Not the World Series, the series before that. And don’t worry, if the Dodgers win against the Mets, more bottles will be popped then and when they win the World Series.
Baseball is truly the epitome of American sports. Losers go home and winners drink excessively.
Let’s be honest, baseball is weird. It’s the only sport that celebrates meaningless wins all the way to the final win. But that’s not even the weirdest aspect of the sport. There’s plenty of strange traditions and people that make up the beautiful game. It’s the only sport with a Big Papi, generational curses, a sport where the most well known player chained smoked cigars and drank himself into an early grave. It’s also incredibly boring to watch.
If I told you that thousands of people would pack into stadiums to watch two guys throw and catch a ball that one guy tries to hit while seven other guys wait for the off chance that he does hit it and it comes to them, you’re rightly start researching mental hospitals near you. Why would anyone watch that? Well the hitters must be really good. Nope. The best ones fail to hit 7 out of 10 times. So there must be a lot of ties? Nope, no ties in baseball, just more baseball. Games must go pretty quick then. Nope, they’re excruciatingly long, like watching a hobbit journey through Middle Earth long.
So what makes baseball so exciting? I think the beauty of baseball is found in its details. It’s unmistakable sound of a ball hitting a wooden bat. For Dodgers fans, it’s the sound of the organist remixing popular songs to spur on the crowd. For players its everything else. The routine, the sunflower seeds, the thrill of a 3-2 count. That feeling of two on and two out as the hitter hits a ground ball towards the gap and you have a chance to save your team from giving up a crucial run.
Yes, baseball is weird. But like anything truly good, there must be that element of weird. Weird keeps it interesting and in October, baseball definitely keeps things interesting.