Baseball - Take the Swings

Baseball.  So many have said so much - and this from Edward Abbey:
"Baseball is a slow, sluggish game with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the situation on the field.  This is what the fan loves about the game."


Well, that is one thing this fan loves about the game.  That we can patiently sit and think through the inning, the number of outs, the count, the defensive options - all before the batter sees his first pitch.  Then recalibrate before the second pitch.  All the while slowly and completely reveling in the beauty of the day.


Baseball is a pleasure and on a crisp, sunny, late afternoon, it is magic. Even here in my adopted home town where we have no major league team, no farm team --- I am learning to love college baseball.  Because that is what we have.  And it is still magic.  It's still a ball field, it is still remarkably green as the lights come on with the sun moving down; it is still all order and chaos.   A triple is still exciting, a boy who fails to swing at the third strike is a tragedy, an error is heartbreak and a runner bouncing up after a stolen base an explosive and marvelous triumph.  It is such a simple and unimaginably complex game.


And here from PeeWee Reese: 
If I had my career to play over, one thing I'd do differently is swing more. Those 1,200 walks I got, nobody remembers them.

It is baseball.  I do believe I'll head out to the game today.