[HPFGU-OTChatter] What's the fun in baseball?

[Richelle Votaw]

Lucy wrote:

> So that really, is all I know about baseball.  I am sure that James
> (my brother) must be exaggerating somewhere, because I doubt the
> sport could be so popular if it was that boring?  Perhaps it's just
> that he's used to 90 minute football matches (soccer), and so three
> hours seemed a little long.

Well, first of all let me say that if someone doesn't understand the rules
of baseball (anyone remember how many hundreds there are?), or at least some
of them, it could be quite boring.  Sure, at any given moment any player out
there could hit the ball if they wanted to.  But the point is not to just
*hit* the ball, but to hit it where you want it to go.  Hit it the wrong
place, it's caught, you're out.  Hit it in the right place, it falls in for
a hit, or better yet, it's out of the park for a home run.  That's why they
don't just get up there and swing away, and why they hit so many foul balls.
Waiting for a pitch they can hit the way they want to.  Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't.

Oh, and let me point out that baseball does *not* stop every five minutes
for a commercial break.   Baseball, in fact, is not designed for television
(football--American football, is).  There's a commercial break between every
half inning, regardless of how long it lasts.  If no one gets a hit, it may
be three or four minutes.  If lots of players are getting hits, it may be
15, 20 minutes or more.  There's also a reason for those commercial breaks,
it's a bit boring to watch players run in and out of the dugouts getting in
position, tossing balls around to warm up.  Sure, they stretch that out a
bit for commercials, but not that much.  There's also commercial breaks when
a team changes pitchers, that takes a while too, and once again, it's a bit
boring to watch the pitcher walk to the mound and warm up on a few pitches.

Richelle, ever the defender of baseball. :)