GaryMrMets
08-01-2003, 02:31 AM
http://www.yesnetwork.com/announcers/index.cfm?cont_id=194502&page_type=wide
Pep Talk: Why I love baseball
http://www.yesnetwork.com/photos/pepes_small.jpgBy Phil Pepe
Special to YES Network Online
July 22, 2003
My love affair with this game called baseball began when I was six. I started following my Dodgers through the warm, soft, syrupy, Southern tones of Red Barber pouring like molasses through my radio, and by checking the box scores in my morning newspaper. I saw my first game in Ebbets Field in 1942, my first no-hitter in 1945 -- pitched against the Boston Braves by a Dodger with the unlikely name of Ed Head, who won only two other games that season -- and cajoled my aunt Anna to teach me long division before my peers so I could figure out batting averages.
This love affair continues to this day, six decades later, and remains ongoing, for better and for worse.
The "worse" is interleague play, the designated hitter, the wild card, five-man pitching rotations, managing by computer, free agency, pitch counts, pitchers who rarely finish what they start, three and a half hour games, and relief pitchers who don't report for work until the ninth inning.
The "better" is that the game itself has changed little over the past almost century and a half. It's still basically the same game that was invented by Abner Doubleday…or Alexander Cartwright…or Bobby Valentine…or Billy Beane.
Imagine the foresight and genius of the framers of this great game who placed the bases 90 feet apart, the pitching rubber 60 feet, six inches from home plate, deployed nine men on a side, established the length of the game at nine innings and decreed that each half inning shall consist of three outs.
The recent All-Star game in Chicago, played with intensity and purpose, attests to a game that must be great if, as has often been stated, it survives the fools who have run it. Its greatness is that it is unique. There are nine (notice the symmetry here) reasons baseball stands apart it from the three other major team sports:
1. Dress code
Baseball is the only sport in which the manager (coach) wears the same uniform as the players (thank heaven we have been spared the sight of Red Auerbach, Frank Layden and Rick Majerus in short pants).
The reason baseball insists on managers dressing like the players is that a manager is not allowed on the field in street clothes. That's why it's called a uniform, because all participants must be dressed uniformly.
In baseball, there have been two notable exceptions. Connie Mack, who managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 53 years (he won a record 3,776 games and lost a record 4,025), and was a part owner of the team, sat in the dugout wearing a suit, a high, starched collar and tie and a hat. He was not permitted on the field. He sent a coach, dressed in a uniform, to make pitching changes. Burt Shotton was brought in to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 after Leo Durocher was suspended for consorting with known gamblers. Shotton dressed in street clothes, except for a Dodgers warm-up jacket, and won pennants in 1947 and 1949.
2. No return policy
Once a player leaves a baseball game for a substitute, he is not permitted to re-enter the game.
3. Time stands still
Baseball is the only major team sport that does not employ a clock.
Consequently, in theory, unlike other team sports, no lead is insurmountable in baseball. A four-touchdown lead in football with two minutes to play, or a 20-point lead in basketball with 24 seconds remaining, or a five-goal lead in hockey with a minute left leaves the trailing team helpless, and hopeless. In baseball, the game isn't over until the last man is out. The down side to that is games that drag on past three, even four hours, often an irritant only to baseball writers.
4. Different strokes for different folks
Football fields, basketball courts and hockey rinks are pretty much standard in size and shape. Not so baseball, where the playing surface can vary from Fenway Park's Green Monster, to McCovey Cove in Pac Bell to Yankee Stadium's short porch in right field and cavernous expanse in center. It's a different game when, for example, the Yankees and Red Sox play in Fenway Park than when they play in Yankee Stadium.
As a result, teams will tailor the makeup of their roster to the contours of their home ballpark, i.e., right-handed sluggers and right-handed pitchers for the Red Sox, left-handed sluggers and left-handed pitchers for the Yankees.
5. No place like home
There is no coin flip in baseball, no jump ball, no face off. The home team gets to bat last in each inning, and, most important, in the final inning.
6. All teams are created equal
In football, one team can have possession of the ball for 40 minutes, the other for 20. In basketball, one team can throw up 100 shots, the other 30. In hockey, one team can fire 40 shots on goal, the other team can have six.
Not so in baseball. Each team gets the same number of innings in which to score: nine; and the same number of outs: three per inning, 27 for the game.
7. Defense rests
Baseball is the only major team sport in which a team cannot score when the opposition is in possession of the ball (at bat).
8. Pitch and woo
The most important player on the team (the pitcher) does not play in every game. Imagine the Nets without Jason Kidd, the Jets without Curtis Martin or the Devils without Martin Brodeur. The Yankees are a better team and have a better chance to win when Roger Clemens, David Wells or Mariano Rivera is in the game than they do when, say, Sterling Hitchcock is on the mound.
9. Star search
Is there another team sport in which the star player and leading box office attraction cannot control a game or influence its outcome? Can you picture a football game in which Joe Namath does not throw a pass or Walter Payton never carries the ball? A basketball game in which Michael Jordan doesn't take a shot? A hockey game in which Wayne Gretzky doesn't touch the puck?
In baseball, Ozzie Smith can get no chances at shortstop. Barry Bonds can be walked four times.
Nine reasons baseball is unique among major team sports. Nine reasons I love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
Acclaimed author and former Yankees beat writer Phil Pepe is a regular contributor to YES Network Online. His latest work is entitled "The Yankees: An Authorized History of the New York Yankees Centennial Edition," due to be released in November.
Pep Talk: Why I love baseball
http://www.yesnetwork.com/photos/pepes_small.jpgBy Phil Pepe
Special to YES Network Online
July 22, 2003
My love affair with this game called baseball began when I was six. I started following my Dodgers through the warm, soft, syrupy, Southern tones of Red Barber pouring like molasses through my radio, and by checking the box scores in my morning newspaper. I saw my first game in Ebbets Field in 1942, my first no-hitter in 1945 -- pitched against the Boston Braves by a Dodger with the unlikely name of Ed Head, who won only two other games that season -- and cajoled my aunt Anna to teach me long division before my peers so I could figure out batting averages.
This love affair continues to this day, six decades later, and remains ongoing, for better and for worse.
The "worse" is interleague play, the designated hitter, the wild card, five-man pitching rotations, managing by computer, free agency, pitch counts, pitchers who rarely finish what they start, three and a half hour games, and relief pitchers who don't report for work until the ninth inning.
The "better" is that the game itself has changed little over the past almost century and a half. It's still basically the same game that was invented by Abner Doubleday…or Alexander Cartwright…or Bobby Valentine…or Billy Beane.
Imagine the foresight and genius of the framers of this great game who placed the bases 90 feet apart, the pitching rubber 60 feet, six inches from home plate, deployed nine men on a side, established the length of the game at nine innings and decreed that each half inning shall consist of three outs.
The recent All-Star game in Chicago, played with intensity and purpose, attests to a game that must be great if, as has often been stated, it survives the fools who have run it. Its greatness is that it is unique. There are nine (notice the symmetry here) reasons baseball stands apart it from the three other major team sports:
1. Dress code
Baseball is the only sport in which the manager (coach) wears the same uniform as the players (thank heaven we have been spared the sight of Red Auerbach, Frank Layden and Rick Majerus in short pants).
The reason baseball insists on managers dressing like the players is that a manager is not allowed on the field in street clothes. That's why it's called a uniform, because all participants must be dressed uniformly.
In baseball, there have been two notable exceptions. Connie Mack, who managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 53 years (he won a record 3,776 games and lost a record 4,025), and was a part owner of the team, sat in the dugout wearing a suit, a high, starched collar and tie and a hat. He was not permitted on the field. He sent a coach, dressed in a uniform, to make pitching changes. Burt Shotton was brought in to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 after Leo Durocher was suspended for consorting with known gamblers. Shotton dressed in street clothes, except for a Dodgers warm-up jacket, and won pennants in 1947 and 1949.
2. No return policy
Once a player leaves a baseball game for a substitute, he is not permitted to re-enter the game.
3. Time stands still
Baseball is the only major team sport that does not employ a clock.
Consequently, in theory, unlike other team sports, no lead is insurmountable in baseball. A four-touchdown lead in football with two minutes to play, or a 20-point lead in basketball with 24 seconds remaining, or a five-goal lead in hockey with a minute left leaves the trailing team helpless, and hopeless. In baseball, the game isn't over until the last man is out. The down side to that is games that drag on past three, even four hours, often an irritant only to baseball writers.
4. Different strokes for different folks
Football fields, basketball courts and hockey rinks are pretty much standard in size and shape. Not so baseball, where the playing surface can vary from Fenway Park's Green Monster, to McCovey Cove in Pac Bell to Yankee Stadium's short porch in right field and cavernous expanse in center. It's a different game when, for example, the Yankees and Red Sox play in Fenway Park than when they play in Yankee Stadium.
As a result, teams will tailor the makeup of their roster to the contours of their home ballpark, i.e., right-handed sluggers and right-handed pitchers for the Red Sox, left-handed sluggers and left-handed pitchers for the Yankees.
5. No place like home
There is no coin flip in baseball, no jump ball, no face off. The home team gets to bat last in each inning, and, most important, in the final inning.
6. All teams are created equal
In football, one team can have possession of the ball for 40 minutes, the other for 20. In basketball, one team can throw up 100 shots, the other 30. In hockey, one team can fire 40 shots on goal, the other team can have six.
Not so in baseball. Each team gets the same number of innings in which to score: nine; and the same number of outs: three per inning, 27 for the game.
7. Defense rests
Baseball is the only major team sport in which a team cannot score when the opposition is in possession of the ball (at bat).
8. Pitch and woo
The most important player on the team (the pitcher) does not play in every game. Imagine the Nets without Jason Kidd, the Jets without Curtis Martin or the Devils without Martin Brodeur. The Yankees are a better team and have a better chance to win when Roger Clemens, David Wells or Mariano Rivera is in the game than they do when, say, Sterling Hitchcock is on the mound.
9. Star search
Is there another team sport in which the star player and leading box office attraction cannot control a game or influence its outcome? Can you picture a football game in which Joe Namath does not throw a pass or Walter Payton never carries the ball? A basketball game in which Michael Jordan doesn't take a shot? A hockey game in which Wayne Gretzky doesn't touch the puck?
In baseball, Ozzie Smith can get no chances at shortstop. Barry Bonds can be walked four times.
Nine reasons baseball is unique among major team sports. Nine reasons I love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
Acclaimed author and former Yankees beat writer Phil Pepe is a regular contributor to YES Network Online. His latest work is entitled "The Yankees: An Authorized History of the New York Yankees Centennial Edition," due to be released in November.