Baseball is Dead; Long Live Baseball

by Seth

Baseball season is in full look-to-the-fences swing. My Cubs are currently sitting at #1 in the National League, and they also have the highest win percentage in Major League Baseball. Despite my knowledge of that fact, I really don't keep up with baseball too much during regular season play because there is just so much information to process. There are 30 teams, and each one of those teams plays about 160 games in regular season; each one of those teams has 9 starting players (10 in the American League with the designated hitter position); those players can be broken down to: infield, outfield, and a rotating roster of pitchers (and then break that down to openers, relievers, and closers which all have sets of stats), then each player has both offense and defense stats, etc. Every single game these teams play produces an unbelievable amount of data that is disseminated to the appropriate coaches, managers, physical trainers, doctors, groundskeepers, and business administrators who need to make decisions about the next game's line-up.

Despite the stat machine, the reason people enjoy watching baseball is the human story that can be pulled from the numbers. The machine might see a centerfielder's batting average dip below .150 (that's 1.5 hits for every 10 at-bats for you non-baseballers) in the month of June; a fan would see Brian Barton, a 26 year-old Cardinal who, aside from almost completing an aeronautical engineering degree in Miami, is struggling to adjust to the big leagues when he was called up to mend the broken lines of the injury-plagued Cards. A real fan might know that Barton has the potential to be a solid addition to the roster - after all he does co-own the record for highest batting average at the University of Miami - so they're willing to have a little hope that he'll find his groove shortly. (For more on Barton, check out this article).

The problem is people long for the heroic feats. Heroism comes from overcoming a compelling conflict. The ultimate conflict in baseball is between the pitcher and the batter because it is one man against another; one man's training and physical prowess against another's. This is what makes pitchers and the batters become the superstars. Which batters are triumphant over the pitchers, and which pitchers are triumphant over the batters? All other defensive plays are tertiary; no matter what sort of athletic ability is required to track a line drive to the wall; the other eight players on the field are there like the ropes on a boxing ring.

This is also why the vaunted stats, the numbers that make legends, all have to do with batting and pitching. Nobody remembers the Golden Glove winning centerfielder from 1994, but they do know who Ken Griffey Jr. is because he was cranking out homers for the Seattle Mariners. Funny thing is, Junior was the Golden Glove winner, and that was just one year out of ten in a row that he won the award, setting a new defensive record.

That's also why the home run records are so compelling. In 1961, Roger Maris broke the single season home run record set by Babe Ruth 34 years earlier. Roger Maris was 26. He hadn't even been alive when Ruth set the record. That record stood for another 37 years until Mark McGwire broke it. He was 34. It only took three years for Barry Bonds to break the new record. We all know the story: both McGwire and Bonds were allegedly using steroids to enhance their games and there has been an endless investigation by the United States Senate, no less, into the depths of baseball to see if all that information provided by the stat machine for the past ten years can even be trusted.

As the investigation unfolds, it turns out that a lot of players were using steroids. A lot. But it's only players who were known for their hitting or their pitching. First it was McGwire and Bonds, now it's Roger Clemens, the ace pitcher who was known for his enduring career, health, and fastball. It turns out, players don't juice to enhance their ability to field a one-hopper down the third base line.

But why, all the sudden, are players turning to illegal methods to up their games? There are a lot of factors, including the pressures that earning absurd amounts of money will put on you to be a superstar, but I think there's a much deeper and universal root than greed. I think it has to do with the fact that baseball has nearly 100 years of professional history behind it. The human limitations of the game were explored early in the game. Babe Ruth set a mark that took 34 years to clear, and when Roger Maris did it he only bested the record by one home run; and it took more games for him to do it. In the meantime, pitching evolved. Pitchers learned better mechanics, had better practice facilities, utilized teams of stat keepers to find out batters' weaknesses. Everything that was humanly possible has been done. Baseball has told its story. So baseball is a machine now. People are still playing; fans are still watching; kids are still learning the fundamentals; the temple has been built; the players are looking to make their mark, but all the marks have been made.

So is baseball as a human endeavor dead? Can it no longer tell us anything about the human condition? Has it ceased to speak? It's done, it's time to move on. However, I know what it says to me every spring when I pull out the mitt. When I personally throw that 5 oz., 9-inch circumference sphere of leather, and string, and cork, it feels like something a human was made to do; like my body was engineered for that. I suppose that's the difference between doing and observing; the difference between participating in the organism and decoding the stats; the difference between gods and stone idols. Far be it from me to get in the way of what baseball has to say.

Long live baseball.