Why I Love Baseball: A Partial List

Wrigley Field Outing Offers Reminder of How I Fell Head Over Heels

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking in the Chicago Cubs’ 2-0 win over the Texas Rangers from the sunny, chilly Wrigley Field bleachers. It marked my 48^th year of going to Major League Baseball games.

Ever since that breath-taking May 1976 doubleheader¹ when I first gazed upon the glory of Fenway Park, it has never gotten old. And while I might eventually wax on at length about the rule changes that have sped up the game (most notably, the pitch clock), suffice to say that I am a fan of these pace-accelerating changes.

For one thing, there is still plenty of time to catch up with a friend, which I did yesterday. (Instead of another 45 minutes at the park, we continued our conversation at his home that’s walking distance from the Friendly Confines.)

The older I get, the more that element – of the game as a vehicle for reconnecting with old friends or building memories with family² – appeals to me. If the action happens to be dramatic and suspenseful, then that’s icing on the cake.

At any given moment, there is a good chance that I am reading a baseball book, along with a cross-section of other material. Lately, in addition to reading “Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir,” by Alan Gaff, I have been reading Joe Posnanski’s “The Baseball 100” (his wonderful essays on those he considers baseball’s 100 top all-time players³). Joe’s next book, “Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments,” comes out in September.

Borrowing from that theme, here is my partial list of Why I Love Baseball:

I love baseball because I love competition in general; baseball is a blend of 1-on-1 confrontation (pitcher vs. batter) and team play (what ensues when a batter hits the ball, or a base runner tries to steal a base).

I love baseball because I loved playing it as a kid – the thrill of hitting the ball really hard or making a diving catch or dashing around the bases to score. I love baseball, even with the heartbreak of having a groundball go through my legs or striking out or otherwise feeling absolutely overmatched by my opponent.

I love baseball for the story-telling it inspires. There are so many wonderful examples, but here’s one: my April 2019 call-out of an artfully crafted Dodgers vs. Cubs game story by Los Angeles Times writer Jorge Castillo.

I love, love, love baseball because it is drenched in numbers, numbers, numbers. (This may well be my first, second and third-biggest reasons for loving baseball.)

All those metrics provide infinite opportunity to indulge my obsession with statistics – a yen that led to my:

• memorizing enough data to become a contestant on Sports Jeopardy!

• creation of a statistic a quarter-century ago called the Home Run Power Ratio

• having a stint, over 20 years ago, for a few years as a stats researcher for Sports Illustrated for Kids. I also had a baseball stats column for the Daily Herald in 2020 and 2021, along with occasional stats columns for the DH over the years.

• played a pivotal role in my creation of a numeracy workshop (Go Figure: Making Numbers Count). Since 2001, Go Figure has taken me all over the country to train journalists on using numbers effectively, intelligently and responsibly in the stories they tell.

Those reasons are just a warmup, but in the spirit of the pitch clock’s enforced brevity, let me just echo Chico Escuela’s remark from Saturday Night Live, “Baseball been berry, berry good to me.”

In Closing: What Else? An Easter Baseball Column!

Maybe, like me, you are celebrating Easter as a Christian. Or it could be you simply enjoy Easter Egg hunts or brunches with extended family. Whatever the case, Happy Easter!

Let’s conclude with a cross between this holiday and, of course, baseball: my research on the history of games played on Easter⁴ by the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. You can take a gander at the column below as it appeared in the Daily Herald on April 12, 2020—wow your friends and family with deep trivia!

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1. My dad took me and my two brothers on the day before Mother’s Day — a gift, no doubt, to my mom who had a day of peace and quiet. The Rangers beat the Red Sox, 6-5 and 12-4, in one of the only doubleheaders I have ever seen. I brought my glove, we sat maybe 10 rows behind the first-base dugout, and Red Sox second baseman Doug Griffin hit a line shot foul that came screaming at me. I ducked and can still picture the middle-aged man bobbling the ball as he corralled it in the row behind me. Closest I came to getting an MLB ball…until I finally got one several years ago at a White Sox game. A story for another day.

2. For a related piece, after the sensational August 2021 White Sox-Yankees game at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, check out my column, At the Heart of Field of Dreams’ Allure: Relationships.

3. I am learning a ton about Negro League players, among other highlights from the book, and Joe’s essays are sending me to Baseball-Reference for a deeper dive into—you guessed it—the players’ numbers.

4. Of course, both teams have played twice on Easter since this column appeared. The White Sox lost both their games and are now 21-27 across all Easters. Meanwhile, the Cubs have won both their games the past two seasons to improve their record to 22-29 on Easter.