Baseball 🍿
I love baseball. I don’t mean that I’m a statistician. I don’t only care who hit the most home runs in the 1900s or which left-handed pitcher threw the fastest pitch in history. I mean I love the game of baseball. I’m the guy who can sit for hours watching games even when my favorite team isn’t playing. I’m the guy who loved playing baseball as a kid and still loves listening to a good game on the radio. Yes, like my dad, a good old AM/FM pocket radio is all I need.
Don’t get me wrong, turning on the night’s game on my iPad and watching MLB.TV in full HD is always a great experience too. But that’s just a perk. I’m perfectly fine just sitting back and listening.
I also love going to watch a game live. The excitement of the crowd, the crack of the bat, the questionable calls that make things interesting… all of it makes for a perfect night in my book.
Not surprisingly, I love Ken Burns' Baseball. It’s a slow-paced, fact-filled documentary that chronicles the game from its very beginnings to the most exciting and controversial moments in its history. It’s divided into nine “innings,” and it’s done so very well. By that, I mean that it neatly wraps up a decade or so worth of history into a nice package.
For me, it’s like a comfortable blanket. I’ll turn it on and watch a segment or two on a rainy day or a Sunday afternoon. Often it’s so good that I get enthralled with it and binge-watch, but then I slow down because I don’t want it to end.
I think all baseball fans or students of history should watch it at least once. Me? I revisit it every once in a while, and I plan to continue doing so for as long as I can.