The Greatest Game of All

Today, being perhaps the best day of the year*, is a good moment to consider Ross Douthat's assertion that John Rawls was right. We do not speak of philosophy, of course, but of something much more important: sport. More specifically, Rawls' belief that "baseball is the best of all games."

There's something to this, for sure, though really it would be better rendered as "Baseball is the best of all American games" - a sentiment with which it would be hard to quibble, much though I also admire and enjoy college football (Go Blue!).

Ross elaborates:

One could go on to note the perfect balance that baseball strikes between team effort and individual performance, a balance at once deeply Christian and deeply small-d democratic. Or its paradoxical nature, which inspires quantification and romanticization in equal measure, and offers food for statheads as well as novelists, conservatives as well as liberals,  historians as well as business writers. Or …

No, enough. No argument, however self-evidently powerful, will persuade those deluded souls – and they do exist! – who would argue that the qualities that Rawls and Kalven considered strengths are actually weaknesses. Those who would claim that baseball’s physical ecumenism – the sport’s ability to find a place for Chone Figgins as well as Vladimir Guerrero, for John Kruk as well as Bo Jackson - makes it ultimately inferior to basketball or football or soccer as a test of athletic ability. Those who would assert that the skills that baseball requires are too idiosyncratic to be interesting – that whereas everyone can appreciate the physical strength required to be an offensive lineman, or the speed and agility required of a small forward, only a crank or an obsessive can get worked up about how well a paunchy middle-aged man flicks a curve or spins a knuckleball. Those who would aver that baseball’s clocklessness, its out-of-time quality and its inclination toward eternity, just means that the games take too damn long.

Such people are beyond the reach of reason. Also, they’re communists.

To which, again, one can say that this is all very well and good yet also, in any reasonable final analysis, insufficient. Britishers and Australians exiled in the United States of America can love baseball (and we do!) while acknowledging that it is, in the end, merely making do with what's available. Even so, it's my experience that members of the Commonwealth are more open to enjoying American sport than the Americans, isolationists to the bitter end, tend** to be to appreciating the glories of the world's grandest game. Indeed, what is baseball but a simplified, abbreviated form of cricket?

Americans, again in my experience, tend to scoff at this sort of talk. But at the risk of arguing from authority, let me cite Thomas Boswell, the Washington Post's veteran and well-regarded baseball columnist. Boswell had the good fortune to attend the fifth day of the 1984 Lords test between England and the West Indies. The following day - which happened to be July 4th - he made this quasi-treasonous admission:

"I came with an open mind but a suspicion that I would despise the world's slowest team sport... However, instead of coming away a mocker, I now suspect it's lucky for me that I don't live in England. There's a cricket nut trapped somewhere deep inside me; stop me before I become addicted again.

Why wouldn't I get the habit? Cricket is, in many ways, baseball raised to the nth degree. Almost every basic tendency or theme of baseball is mirroried or exaggerated in cricket.... I am titillated by the thought that cricket might be a heightened form of baseball.. If anything, cricket's bowling is even more complex than baseball's pitching, just as cricket's batting is a more encyclopedic sort of acquired skill than hitting a baseball..."

Might be a heightened form of baseball? Nay lad, 'tis.

(I can't find the column online, alas, but you can read it in this collection of Boswell's columns.)

*Why so? Well, there's 24 hours of test cricket today. Since 2pm (UK time) we've been enjoying the fourth day of the West Indies vs Sri Lanka in Guyana; in 20 minutes New Zealand and England take to the field for the fifth day of their test in Napier while, right on cue, 4am sees day one of India vs South Africa in Madras. And all of it, thanks to Mr Murdoch, can be seen on SKY Sports. A blissful, if punishing, schedule leavened only by the prospect of enjoying afternoon tea three times in a singler 24 hour period...

** eg, Sir John Paul Getty

Comments

[dearieme]

I went to watch the Yankees once. Mr Mantle was playing. A triple play was attempted. The hot dogs were good. A competitor for cricket it ain't.

[Chris]

You're being unfair.

If in cricket bowlers had to bowl full-tosses outside middle-and-off all day, and batsmen could only hit the ball forward of midwicket, it would suck as a sport, too.

[Richard Hershberger]

These discussions take a ritual form. Those who grew up with a sport appreciate both its obvious points and its non-obvious nuances. Some of these people later in life come into contact with a superficially similar sport, and learn enough to understand the obvious points. They observe the absence in this other sport of the non-obvious nuances they so appreciate, and conclude from this that there are no non-obvious nuances to it. The flaw in the logic is not hard to see, but frequently the point of the discussion is not to learn stuff, but to confirm one's prejudices.

The cricket/baseball version of this discussion consists are ill-informed comparisons from the cricket side (the mention of the full toss in the previous comment was right on schedule) and, by and large, parochially indifferent ignorance on the baseball side (Americans aren't interested enough in cricket to form an argument for dismissing it).

A good time is had by all, so long as no one was hoping to learn stuff. The Thomas Boswell quote is interesting because it is a person breaking out of his cultural boundaries. This is very rare, from either direction.

[Dave K]

Good stuff, Alex, and also from Mr. Hershberger in the comments. I'm a huge cricket fan having grown up in India, but am also a huge baseball fan having lived in the USA for 2/3 of my life.

The Boswell quote is fascinating, because I've always thought that people who like cricket should like baseball, and vice versa. I do think that the quote isn't entirely fair to baseball -- Boswell is right as far as batting and bowling/pitching goes, but baseball has additional facets like the running game (sending the runner, hit-and-runs, etc.) that cricket just doesn't have. And while field placement is a bigger part of cricket, baseball has things like double plays that add to the strategy. As the previous commenter said, you have to appreciate each game for what it is rather than trying to compare each to the other and thinking only about the ways in which it falls short rather than the ways in which it surpasses.

[dearieme]

How could one learn to appreciate baseball? The TV commentaries are so incredibly dim. Almost soccer-level dim.

[Richard Hershberger]

"How could one learn to appreciate baseball? The TV commentaries are so incredibly dim. Almost soccer-level dim."

Ain't that the truth. A good rule of thumb is that local announcers are frequently better than national network announcers. This isn't always true. Some are disasterous. But good national-level announcers are very rare. FOX is especially bad, as it institutionally seems to dislike baseball and would rather show you celebrities in the stands than the actual game. (FOX is very good with football, however.) CBS does a much better job.

The broader answer to your question depends on where you are. If you are in the United States, the first step is to go to games live. Baseball is better live than on TV. Don't restrict yourself to major league baseball, or even professional ball. Minor league ball has several advantages, not the least being cheaper and better seats available. If you have a friend who knows the game, take him along and buy him a hot dog as he explains the fine points. If you don't know someone who can do this, go to a minor league game and look for a fan holding a score book. This person is a student of the game, and not there merely to get drunk. Chances are excellent that he or she would be more than happy to explain matters.

[tommyt]

form memory the 5th day at Lords in 1984 was when the windies chased down over 300 on the final day, with the help of c223 from Greenidge, this is still in the top 4 or 5 last innings totals ever chased in England i would wager. This let them take a 2-0 lead against an England side who, looking back, were quite a tasty mob that faniced their chances against the carribean kings. That england lost the next 9 straight tests against them is neither here nor there. Anyway - it was a good day for Mr. Boswell to go to the cricket.

[Phil]

Another way to learn baseball would be to read Tom Boswell, as well as others. I never liked baseball until I started reading about it. When you know what to look for, it's a whole other game.

[Geoff Plumridge]

In Australia (my home) we play both sports at school level, although baseball is not as popular with adult participants.

I think that in the main cricket followers cannot respect baseball due to the sheer courage it takes to face a cricket fast bowler at test level.

If I can illustrate please my point: because a batsmans main job is to protect his wicket he places his body directly in line with the path of the ball.. not along side the plate as in baseball. Please see this clip:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=w-f5pfBgpNE

Now in the modern game one wears helmets for protection however even with helmets if you get your footwork wrong in 0.5 of a second this can happen:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxnYBV7vfw

Daniel Flynn of NZ lost both his front teeth..

Now the bottom line is everyone can wax lyrical about all the other nuances of both games but without the extra and very real dangers endemically involved in cricket batting at the highest level, baseball well just doesn't have the same sized testicles. Simple as that.