I played little league. Well, I mean... I had a glove and a uniform and I was on the field at the same time as my friends. But they were really playing the game. I was more... experiencing the game. In right field on a warm summer day, I spent more time focused on picking blades of grass than on the count, the outs, the force at second, the score... the inning. I came to many conclusions about life while standing inert, glove limp at my side, slug of Big League Chew in my mouth and the sun warming my face. I came to the conclusion that baseball isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about not losing. And there’s really only one way to lose: care about winning.
All sports are simulated tribal warfare, a settling of differences between nation state metro city village community tribe peoples who otherwise might just strike each other on the head with the nearest blunt objects. The games we play are manifestations of our progression from brutish apes with opposable thumbs and sticks killing each other over food, mates and patches of land to brutish apes with opposable thumbs and much more effective sticks killing each other over food, mates and patches of land, but not quite as frequently. We are civilized, kinda. We are peaceful, in a way, maybe. At the very least we have societal constructs -- laws, ethics, and consequences -- that keep us from harming one another. These are the rules of the game that we, for the most part, abide by. And we have instead channeled that pent up aggression into sports. Instead of striking, we play ball.
But many of us still have yet to take that next leap in our cognitive development. It’s not just important for us to play the game. We must win. We must defeat our enemies on the field of battle, and therefore, if we don’t win, we... lose. We feel bad. The game isn’t fun anymore. It’s a struggle. I, too, was like this once. I can remember earlier in my little league career when I HAD to get a hit... but I just couldn’t. Weeks were spent with dad in the back yard hitting tiny plastic practice golf balls of different colors. I had to call out the color before I swung, teaching me to see the ball all the way to my bat. So many trips to the batting cages. So many practice swings. Hours of coaching. All of it, for naught. I could not hit.
I remember tightening my pointless batting gloves before stepping in the batter’s box, that chest crushing weight of impending failure pressing into my solar plexus . Chants of “easy-out, easy-out” would rain in from the outfielders as I readied my bat for the first pitch, readied it for a swing that was guaranteed to miss, readied it for the forgone conclusion of my impending out. Finally, I’d face the pitcher, stare directly at the dictator, the tyrant of my childhood, as he went into his wind-up, about to deliver strike one.
Baseball itself is the most peaceful of all games. Born of a pastoral setting, on farms with sun dappled fields of fresh cut grass, it is played at a leisurely pace. There’s even a built in nap time in the middle of the 7th inning, "stretching" as we wake up and return to the game. The whole point of the game is to make it round the bend and safely home. It’s a peaceful game for a peaceful people that became popular right when we needed something peaceful the very most.
In 1857, 16 New York baseball clubs formed the National Association of Baseball Players, NABBP, a predecessor to Major League Baseball. This was only months after Congressman Preston inning, “stretching” as we wake up and return to the game. The whole point of the Brooks used his cane to STRIKE Senator Charles Sumner repeatedly in the head in a dispute over slavery rights and conduct unbecoming a gentleman. Senator Sumner wished to abolish slavery, but Brooks, his cane and his cohorts from South Carolina refused to play ball. Just a few years later, some of Brooks’ people-owning friends decided to STRIKE Fort Sumter April 12, 1961, inciting the Civil War.
Over the next few years, Soldiers taking a break from all the warring would play baseball, and the rules from different states were unified to form one national game. After the war, Soldiers who made it round the bend and safely home spread the game far and wide. There were an estimated 100 ball clubs on record the year before the war, and nearly 4 times that amount the year following the war.
We needed the past time, the distraction -- in particular one so placid, so serene, so freaking boring as baseball. It calms the nerves. For the post-traumatically shocked, it’s better than Xanex. But even within the most peaceful of games there’s a remnant of tribal aggression. The pitcher.
It is his job to determine with his arm who lives and who dies, each pitch an attack, each strike a cutting blow, each out a little death. And there’s little baby Ryan Duke with a bat too big for his body scared to death of the tyrant on the pitcher’s mound about to determine his fate. That is, until I just stopped swinging. I stopped fighting back. Pitcher versus hitter was not a battle I could win. So I rested the bat on my shoulder and took ball one. And two. And three. And my base on balls. And I had won. I was on base. And the next time up, the same tack, and so on, and so on, half the time getting on base without every even trying, and with the top of the lineup behind me, the real hitters, I would more often than not make it round the bend and safely home.
Where the strike is aggression, the ball is conflict avoidance, a peaceful resolution to the battle between batter and pitcher. To embrace the base on balls is to see through the façade of winning and losing that baseball drapes over its serene intentions and evolve beyond your need to win. Feel the sun on your face. Count the blades of grass.
All sports are simulated tribal warfare, a settling of differences between nation state metro city village community tribe peoples who otherwise might just strike each other on the head with the nearest blunt objects. The games we play are manifestations of our progression from brutish apes with opposable thumbs and sticks killing each other over food, mates and patches of land to brutish apes with opposable thumbs and much more effective sticks killing each other over food, mates and patches of land, but not quite as frequently. We are civilized, kinda. We are peaceful, in a way, maybe. At the very least we have societal constructs -- laws, ethics, and consequences -- that keep us from harming one another. These are the rules of the game that we, for the most part, abide by. And we have instead channeled that pent up aggression into sports. Instead of striking, we play ball.
But many of us still have yet to take that next leap in our cognitive development. It’s not just important for us to play the game. We must win. We must defeat our enemies on the field of battle, and therefore, if we don’t win, we... lose. We feel bad. The game isn’t fun anymore. It’s a struggle. I, too, was like this once. I can remember earlier in my little league career when I HAD to get a hit... but I just couldn’t. Weeks were spent with dad in the back yard hitting tiny plastic practice golf balls of different colors. I had to call out the color before I swung, teaching me to see the ball all the way to my bat. So many trips to the batting cages. So many practice swings. Hours of coaching. All of it, for naught. I could not hit.
I remember tightening my pointless batting gloves before stepping in the batter’s box, that chest crushing weight of impending failure pressing into my solar plexus . Chants of “easy-out, easy-out” would rain in from the outfielders as I readied my bat for the first pitch, readied it for a swing that was guaranteed to miss, readied it for the forgone conclusion of my impending out. Finally, I’d face the pitcher, stare directly at the dictator, the tyrant of my childhood, as he went into his wind-up, about to deliver strike one.
Baseball itself is the most peaceful of all games. Born of a pastoral setting, on farms with sun dappled fields of fresh cut grass, it is played at a leisurely pace. There’s even a built in nap time in the middle of the 7th inning, "stretching" as we wake up and return to the game. The whole point of the game is to make it round the bend and safely home. It’s a peaceful game for a peaceful people that became popular right when we needed something peaceful the very most.
In 1857, 16 New York baseball clubs formed the National Association of Baseball Players, NABBP, a predecessor to Major League Baseball. This was only months after Congressman Preston inning, “stretching” as we wake up and return to the game. The whole point of the Brooks used his cane to STRIKE Senator Charles Sumner repeatedly in the head in a dispute over slavery rights and conduct unbecoming a gentleman. Senator Sumner wished to abolish slavery, but Brooks, his cane and his cohorts from South Carolina refused to play ball. Just a few years later, some of Brooks’ people-owning friends decided to STRIKE Fort Sumter April 12, 1961, inciting the Civil War.
Over the next few years, Soldiers taking a break from all the warring would play baseball, and the rules from different states were unified to form one national game. After the war, Soldiers who made it round the bend and safely home spread the game far and wide. There were an estimated 100 ball clubs on record the year before the war, and nearly 4 times that amount the year following the war.
We needed the past time, the distraction -- in particular one so placid, so serene, so freaking boring as baseball. It calms the nerves. For the post-traumatically shocked, it’s better than Xanex. But even within the most peaceful of games there’s a remnant of tribal aggression. The pitcher.
It is his job to determine with his arm who lives and who dies, each pitch an attack, each strike a cutting blow, each out a little death. And there’s little baby Ryan Duke with a bat too big for his body scared to death of the tyrant on the pitcher’s mound about to determine his fate. That is, until I just stopped swinging. I stopped fighting back. Pitcher versus hitter was not a battle I could win. So I rested the bat on my shoulder and took ball one. And two. And three. And my base on balls. And I had won. I was on base. And the next time up, the same tack, and so on, and so on, half the time getting on base without every even trying, and with the top of the lineup behind me, the real hitters, I would more often than not make it round the bend and safely home.
Where the strike is aggression, the ball is conflict avoidance, a peaceful resolution to the battle between batter and pitcher. To embrace the base on balls is to see through the façade of winning and losing that baseball drapes over its serene intentions and evolve beyond your need to win. Feel the sun on your face. Count the blades of grass.
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