Things I am Thankful For #14: Baseball

Things I am Thankful For #14: Baseball. 

Unlike with football, I am a true baseball fan. I have a team that I follow, the RedSox, and I care about the standings and daily performance of all of the teams in contention. I look forward to the day when pitchers and catchers report to training camp in February. I anticipate the start of spring training games, and I relish opening day. 

Baseball is the greatest sport for many reasons. The reason I enjoy baseball so much is the absence of a clock. When you get down to it, I believe that the truly great sports are those that do not have a clock – its absence requires an added aspect of athleticism and strategy that having a clock takes away. The outcome of the game is more heavily decided based upon the athletic abilities of the participants rather than on the timing of play.

I would like to illustrate this point by applying it to football. This may seem strange to you, but remember that there is no game clock in college football overtime. To me, this is the most intense moment in football. Essentially, each team has an equal number of drives and opportunities to score until one team outdoes the other. Once the first team scores a touchdown, the gauntlet is down and the other team has to pick it up and score a touchdown or cede the game. Do or die. Score or go home. That is fun to watch.

Likewise, there is nothing more intense in baseball than watching the home team, down by one in the ninth inning with two outs and a 3-2 count, battle the leading team’s closer and come back with a walk-off win or force extra innings. It’s just pitcher vs. batter… not pitcher or batter vs. clock. Everyone in the stadium can feel the pressure at that key moment that the entire game has been leading up to. That, to me, is what baseball is all about: the key moments that define all of the other moments.