Introduction to Thinking about Baseball
It’s the bottom of the lineup and bottom of the ninth. The cleanup hitter steps up to bat. Home team is down by one run. Two outs, man on second—play’s at first.
The pitcher launches it—he’s got an arm. Fastball, down the middle. Batter doesn’t swing: Strike one. Second pitch, near 95 miles per hour, in the dirt. The batter takes. “Good eye, kid!” 1-1. Next one is too high: 2-1. Finally, the pitcher throws a changeup. It’s in the far bottom corner of the zone, but the batter can’t reach it in time: Foul ball. 2-2. “Be aggressive at that plate, now!”
The pitcher goes into the stretch and considers his options. The catcher flashes sign after sign but is met with a tango of “no’s.” Finally, the sign has the greenlight: four-seam fastball. Fifth pitch rolls in high, but close. The batter throws his hands forward, trying to make any contact with the ball to advance the runner. He clips it—a blooper hit to second.
Easy play: scooped by the second baseman and flipped to third. Ground out, and that’s the game.
If you don’t know much about baseball, you might think I’m speaking gibberish. A baseball fan, however, might find a play like this familiar. Anyone who’s played baseball as a kid or watched it as an adult has seen something like it. This is how a standard baseball broadcaster would call the end of a game like this. Now, maybe I’m simply a poor announcer, but I believe that any baseball fan will have at least something in mind reading this call. Just imagine how a more skilled announcer like Harry Caray might have called it. You can see the play unfold before your eyes.
This was eminently true yesterday as I listened to the Miami Hurricanes’ second game of the season against Penn State. I attended the first, and the Hurricanes did not do so well. Last night, on the other hand, played out much better. As I wrote out chemical equations on a whiteboard to study for Principles of Chemistry, I listened intently to the broadcast to see what was occurring. Even while staring at marks on a whiteboard, I could see the game. I regret not going in person again, but I am satisfied that I could listen to it. I was reminded of Phil Hersh’s famous saying: “Baseball is the only game you can see on the radio.”1
Not only is it a game that you can see while closing your eyes, but is one that calls for much reflection. One philosopher, Alva Noë, pointed this out, calling it an “infinite game”2; another philosopher, Mark Kingwell, called it “the most philosophical of games.”3 The average baseball player or fan might not be an academic, but they certainly think about the game long past the last out. These thoughts are not merely some obsession, though; they’re reflections on the players, the plays, and the game itself. Our reflection might not be explicit, but it is certainly sticks with us. Today, as I watched the third Miami-Penn State game in person, a friend and I talked all about our reflections on the team and our own baseball experience—we weren’t philosophizing in the traditional sense, but we certainly did not stay at surface level talk. There’s much to think about baseball, and I want to explore exactly how we should be thinking about it.
I love baseball. There’s a certain beauty to it. I’ve been playing baseball most of my life. And when I’m not playing, I’m finding some way to get involved by coaching little league or helping out my brothers with their training, no matter how much they, as little brothers, dislike my feedback. Baseball and I have had our moments—I stopped playing for some periods in favor of other sports or injury, and more recently I’ve stepped away from the diamond to focus more on my studies. Truth is, though, I can’t get enough of it. I’m not an amazing player—average at best—but it doesn’t matter much. Baseball is anyone’s game. It’s America’s National Pastime. It is, in my humble opinion, the greatest game to ever be created. I want to share this love of baseball with others, either to convince them that I am right about the high status of baseball, or provide a new perspective on the game.
I’ll tell you about myself, briefly. I’m a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan—not because I’ve lived there, but because my family is from there—and a recent Miami Hurricanes fan. I am a philosophy student at the University of Miami (hence the fact that I am now a Canes fan), and I like to do research of a wide range of topics. Because of this, it is natural for me to think about baseball in a certain way—from a particularly philosophical point of view. I hope to share that view, but I don’t want to write it as if it were some treatise or tome on heavy philosophical concepts. Instead, I want to bring my perspective to baseball fans (and haters alike) in an accessible fashion to provide a unique way of looking at the wonderful game.
Due to all of this, I plan to write on all things baseball: Reports of recent games, analyses of players and teams, current events in the sport, discussions of the game in its entirety, and everything else in between. The focus will be rather broad, but I don’t believe that the broadness takes away from the discussion. I believe that it shows just how integrated baseball can be with many other aspects of our lives and thoughts.
There’s a reason I’ve named this newsletter Thinking about Baseball. First, these publications will be notes of my thoughts on baseball. But second, and more importantly, I want to discover new ways of thinking about the game. By uncovering these perspectives, we will be able to appreciate the game in a new light, and possibly learn more about perspective in our own lives. To do this, we must start thinking about baseball. So, what are we waiting for? Play ball!
Phil Hersh, “Baseball is a Dream That Can’t Go Away,” Chicago Tribune (August 1985), accessed at https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-08-11-8502220361-story.html.
Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 8. This book has certainly influenced the view I’ve had of baseball.
Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters quoted in Kieran Setiya, “Going Deep: Baseball and Philosophy,” Public Books (October 2017), accessed at https://www.publicbooks.org/going-deep-baseball-and-philosophy/#fn-16255-1.
Nice read
Very thoughtful