Choosing A Baseball Team

I decided that if I'm going to follow baseball, I need a favorite baseball team.

It's at this point that most people would say: gee you live in Colorado, so you should root for the Rockies.

The problem is that I didn't grow up with them, and I just got interested in baseball this summer. It's hard to jump on with the home town boys when they are so new, don't seem to really care about winning, and whose mascot resembles an annoying TV dinosaur. (Sorry Dinger, but you know it's true.)

I will say the most convinced argument for picking the home team was made by a friend of mine. Here it goes:

Since my wife and I are expecting our first child, it's important not to put him in the position of being the kid who likes some odd, out of town team. Further, as you'll get the chance to go to more games if you pick a the home team, it'll be a great bonding experience. And someday, even if it's 50 years from now, the Rockies may return to the World Series, and we will get to enjoy that glory moment as long suffering fans.

I wasn't convinced.

After a lot of thought and consideration, I came up with the following criteria for selecting my team, based on my own preferences.

1. History. The team had to be a long standing team with some history. The Rockies were too new of a team. I enjoy reading history generally so that was an important point for my team.

2. Geography. I know I rejected geographic destiny as the method of selecting a team, but it also doesn't make sense to choose a team that is in a place I'd hate to visit or too hard to get to. (Sorry Tokyo Carp)

3. Their fans. Lets face it, the fans of some teams can be downright obnoxious. I wanted a team whose fans I could see myself hanging out with. 

Ultimately, I decided on three teams and a wild card as finalists. 

1. San Francisco Giants. An old team that made the big migration west. 

2. Chicago Cubs, another old team with history. 

3. Seattle Mariners, which isn't that old of a team, but certainly is older than the Rockies. Plus they have the advantage of being in Seattle, a great city to visit. Plus my sister lives there. 

4. The wild card is the St. Louis Cardinals. I'm not a big fan of the city, but what a great team with great history.

After much consideration, I've decided that the only way to decide is to go to a home game in each of their stadiums. I realize this may be a bit expensive, travel wise, and may take a few years to accomplish. I don't see baseball going away any time soon.

Top 10 Baseball Movies

This summer we went on a baseball movie bender. We watched 20+ baseball movies plus Ken Burns's Baseball documentary. Based on the group we watched, here are my Top 10.

1. For the Love of the Game. Starring Kevin Costner as an aging pitcher, the movie portrays his baseball career and his relationship with costar Kelly Preston. I loved this movie because it had a great plot and used baseball as part of the drama.

2. Bull Durham. Honestly, I don't really love Kevin Costner that much. This is a great baseball movie though. It stars Costner as an aging catcher brought in to coach a young pitcher, Tim Robbins. The love triangle with Susan Sarandon is subtle and interesting. The movie is filled with humor and I love the scene where the whole team is at the mound.

3. 42. This is a great drama showing the end of segregated baseball. The courage shown by Robinson and Dodger's owner Branch Rickey is well portrayed.  One of the things I love about baseball is that it is meritocratic. The color of your skin doesn't matter; your nationality doesn't matter; how you play the game does. 42 shows part of the process of making MLB that way.

4. The Rookie. The main character is a former major league player turned high school baseball coach. His kids bet him that if they make the playoffs, he will try out for the big leagues again. This was an emotional story and it turns out to be true.

5. 61*. Mickey Mantel and Roger Maris strive to break Ruth's record. Billy Crystal directs this fun movie, bringing these characters to life.

6. Moneyball. Based on the story of Billy Beane's Oakland A's, and the book written by Michael Lewis. It shows the influence of data analysis and alternative thinking by the A's. The movie wasn't as well dramatized as others on the list, but it's still a fun watch.

7. The Natural. I don't think any list of baseball movies could be complete without this movie. The production is excellent. Robert Redford is amazing. The only issue I have is the pace. I found the movie dragged and was a little confused by some of the plot points. Maybe I need to read the book and then watch the movie again.

8. Pride of the Yankees. A bio-pic of a great guy: Lou Gehrig. Strangely this movie lacked a little in baseball drama. It was more about Gehrig's life and struggles.

9. Major League. This is a silly comedy. You can't get around it. But it has two main virtues: it dramatizes the struggle of an underdog team, and it uses the game to dramatize plot points better than most other movies.

10. Trouble with the Curve. This is almost the anti-Moneyball movie. It discounts "big data" for an "ear for the game". That said, it's a fun story with interesting characters. Plus: Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams!

You'll notice that I left off Field of Dreams from my top 10. I disliked this movie. I've watched it three times over the years and have never liked it. I'll share my reasons in another post.

Early Baseball Memories

As I started following baseball this summer, I started thinking about my childhood experiences with the game. I never had that early memory of my first game, like perhaps the kids in the accompanying photo are having. I don't miss it. I have other memories. I do think it explains a little about why I never got into baseball.

Here’s what I remember:

1.  I went to one baseball practice when I was 10. I remember that, unlike soccer, I spent most of the time standing around, bored. My dad decided it was a waste of time, and I never went back.
2. We played soft pitch in gym class one day. I was the catcher. The kid at bat hit the ball, threw the bat at me as he was leaving the plate. I ended up at the nurse icing my hand.
3. We always talked about going down to see the Zephyrs play in Colorado Springs. It always seemed too far.
4. I remember the excitement there was for getting a MLB team in Colorado. My dad was upset that they didn’t name them the Denver Bears after an older team on Colorado. I agreed that the “Rockies” was kind of a dumb name.
5. I went to a game with my dad and brother, shortly after he got back from traveling in India. I think he had some massive culture shock as we sat in the stands at Mile High Stadium while some jerk yelled obscenities at our first baseman.
6. My grandfather watched a ton of baseball at his kitchen table after he retired. He always had to turn the volume down when I came over so we could talk. 
7. I attended a handful of games with friends in my 20’s. Cubs vs Rockies with Jennifer. Reds vs Rockies with Cliff. Mariners vs Rockies with Mark. I only remember little bits of the conversations with my friends, but nothing about the games themselves.

After playing softball this summer and watching several games, I am starting to make some more baseball memories.

Baseball and Individualism

Baseball is an individualistic sport. I never understood this, and people said it all the time. Then again, I played soccer, basketball, hockey and wrestled, but never played baseball growing up.

When I think of an individual sport, I think of wrestling. It was obvious to me the first time I went to the mat: there is no one there to help me. This guy could beat me or I could beat him, but there is no one to blame but me. This is individualism. Only your performance matters; there is no collective blame.

I remember one tournament I was in: I was trying to get my coach to come to the mat where I was scheduled for a match. I wanted someone on my side so I didn’t feel so alone -- someone to yell helpful suggestions. I was called to the center of the circle. The coach wasn’t there. I was mad at the coach for not being there. I took it out on my opponent, and pinned him in the first period.

After the match, the coach came ambling up to say he was there. “Where are you going to wrestle?” he asked. I told him that I already pinned the guy. The coach's response: “Well, you didn’t need me after all.”

Since then, I’ve always loved the individual sports. My dad and I enjoy watching boxing matches. I occasionally catch a judo or collegiate wrestling match. I love the one-on-one, mano-a-mano style of sport.

So I found it hard to reconcile baseball as an individualistic sport. At least until my first at bat.

There I was, holding a bat for the first time in two decades. We already have two outs and are down by several runs. In our league, to speed-up play, batters start with a ball and a strike. Shortly, I was at three balls and two strikes. My heart was pounding. I had that exact same feeling that I had at the center of a wrestling circle. There was no one else. Only a few things could happen, I could get walked, I could strike out swinging or not, or I could hit it. But only two people had any control of that. Me and the pitcher. This was thrilling. This was me versus him. And even then, it was really me versus the 10 guys on the field. If they caught my hit, I was out. If they got the ball to first base before I was there, I was out. That’s pressure, and it’s thrilling.

This is how baseball is individualistic. The play revolves around a single individual trying to swing a big stick at a fast moving ball.

There are other aspects of the game.

In the field, there is teamwork. Anyone who watches a great double play has seen some excellent teamwork.

Yet there’s a lot of individual effort. You have to be responsible for balls hit to you. A great outfielder can make an amazing play that saves the game. If you don’t make the play you should, you get an individual error.

On offense, there are times when your goal isn’t to get on base, but to advance a runner on second home. Doing so to get runs on the board.

If you google this subject, there is a lot of great writing about this idea. My favorite is this one, written by a Brit who specializes in American history. He has a few excellent thoughts about the individualism of the sport.

America is a country based on individualism. I think it is fitting that her national pastime is individualistic as well. As Pete Rose said "Baseball is a team game, but nine men who reach their individual goals make a nice team."

Why the sudden baseball obsession?

The short answer: I started playing softball with my neighborhood team.

The long answer: I had a moment during the first game of our softball season.  I was out in left field trying to pay attention to what was happening at the plate. I was terrified that the ball would get hit in my direction, but mostly I was confused by what was going on. I knew the basic rules of the game; there were nuances I'd missed somehow. It was a moment that I realized that I should know what's happening, and I was totally lost.

After that game, I decided that I needed to learn more if I was going to really enjoy my experiment with softball this summer. I decided to do these three things:

1. Watching a lot of baseball movies. Dramatizing sports helps make the game more meaningful.

2. Actually watching a baseball game on TV. (Yes, that's right, I've never watched a baseball game.) Commentators help to explain the game.

3. Have the captain of our softball team watch the game before ours and explain what I should be doing at whatever position I was playing. Generally, try to learn about the game from my teammates and pay close attention to our games.

The more I watched and paid attention, the more I realized that baseball was a great sport. I realized I actually liked baseball. Forty years of my life and I finally discovered baseball!

I'm going to reopen this blog to do some writing about my thoughts on baseball, baseball movies, softball, and generally what it's like to discover baseball at 40.