The Black Laser

In the past, I would often comment that I thought baseball would be a much more exciting spot to watch if you prerecorded the whole game and then cut out all the boring waiting parts. You know the bits. The pitcher is shaking his head to tell the catcher he doesn’t want to throw that one. The batter steps out of the box to adjust he crotch. The other players spitting dip and sunflower seeds on the undoubtedly vile floor of the dugout. The game would obviously be much better without all this filler, this nonsense. Who needs it? Just get rid of that stuff and only show the pitching and hitting and subsequent play making. You would cut a game from 3.5 to 4 hours down to about 75 minutes. It makes perfect sense. Baseball is a slow sport and can be boring as all get out.

Get rid of the fluff and you have a pulse-pounding, action-packed extravaganza of the highest order. Right?

But then I learned to love baseball and realized that my earlier estimation was totally wrong. When I miss a game and try to watch the replay on Yes, they do more or less what I described earlier to the games and I find it unbelievably frustrating, almost to the point that I just don’t want to watch the game at all. It feels like a broken, chopped up, ruined experience to see the “exciting” or “significant” parts only. When the telecast jumps from the bottom of the 3rd inning to the top of the 5th, you just aren’t getting the same experience. It’s like watching the Cliff’s Notes version of a baseball game; all the information, but none of the joy and artistry.

It’s those silences in a baseball game that make the exciting parts exciting. Without them you have a highlight reel. Without the silent moments, the waiting, the anticipation, baseball is drained of its tension and drama. There is no way to experience the determination and careful strategizing that takes place in a baseball game without the long, drawn out pauses between pitches. There’s no way to feel the grit in a player without the close up on his face during those in-between moments. There’s no way to fully FEEL a baseball game without the quietest moments to contrast the more active, louder moments. The stillness punctuates the explosions. And, ultimately, the pauses make the game great. You could have wall-to-wall action like a basketball game, the mind-numbing slowness of golf, or the stilted, television-friendly action of football, but only baseball allows you the cool, contemplative leisureliness coupled with moments of incredible action and drama.

So, baseball, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was so very, very wrong. I love your pauses and your stillness. They make the players’s feats of athleticism so much sweeter.