What do you love about baseball?

[RchW]

Another reason I love baseball is that it is both fair and unfair in a perverse way.

The fairness of equal chances, no time limits and rewards for skilled play, give way to the unfairness of a bloop hit off the end of the bat of an over matched hitter that spins its way into and out of the glove of the fielder allowing 2 runs to score. The next inning a screaming line drive caught by the 3B in order to save his face if not his life becomes a game ending DP. In each case an, instant, a small variation, could change the outcome. That's baseball!

[PirateBob]

Playing 3 years of little league, and collecting cards and trading with friends at school and teammates. Riding my bicycle to the next town to the penny candy/butchers shop/only gas station to get my cards, and the awesome gum that came in them. Playing baseball in Phys. ed. but "not being good enough" for the school team. We only had 3 TV channels as far out as we lived because cable would not go that far out for so few houses, so watching a ballgame was rare.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

What do I love about baseball? Everything.

[myasu]

Sound and feel of the bat crashing the baseball, and that feeling of trying to catch the ground ball backhanded, but can not reach to the ball. I also love the long season where you live and die with your team everyday for more than 6 months.

Writing all this made me wanna go to the ballpark!

[Nukester]

For me its the numbers, stats, trends, records, etc......

[Good_Vibes]

Nostalgia. To me, baseball players are the heroes of legends. I love hearing stories about the oldtimers- Williams, DiMaggio, Clemente, Cobb... I honestly appreciate the history of the game and the drive of the young players to reach that level. I love going to Cape Cod League games and being able to see potentially great players while sitting on the foul line.

One of my earliest memories is being stuck in traffic on Landsdowne St. in Boston with my grandmother and listening to the game on the radio. I remember being in awe looking up at the big green walls and the brights lights against the dark sky. From where we were, we could barely hear the crowd, but I remember imagining everyone going wild inside.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Mr.Baseball

Obviously, if you play OOTP baseball the odds are you an avid baseball fan.

But what I want to know is what got you into the sport?

Well, Little League WAS invented in my hometown, and the World Series is played there every year, so baseball is kind of a huge deal in Williamsport. lol.

That, and I'm related to Mike Mussina, who forced me to stare down his knucklecurve in the summertime when I was a kid, while he was going to Stanford....lol.

[Vinny P.]

What I remember most about baseball:

The first "big game" I have ever been to was the Little League World Series....

I musta been about 5 or 6, and my grandfather used to take me and my bro (we were his favorite kids! LOL) over to Brandon Park, and watch all "the big kids" play. I still remember watching my cousin Mike that summer when he was in high school. After the games, we would all go out for some pizza and/or ice cream. Near the end of that summer, my grandfather took us over to Lamade Stadium. I remember it perfectly to this day. I was thoroughly impressed. The first time I have ever seen a stadium (other than The Williamsport Bills, at the time at Bowman Field, but that was small compared to Lamade.)

I thought it was a real professional baseball stadium. I had no idea it was just across the river from where I lived, and children not a whole lot older than I am, got to play. (Being 5, a car ride over to South Williamsport felt like it took hours for some reason, and 11 and 12 year olds seemed like adults....LOL.) But I don't remember the ride. I only remember getting out of the car, and looking up this huge, monstrous hill, to an even more monstrous grandstands. You could only see the back end of the grandstands, sure. As we got closer, they had these HUGE banners of the LLWS players from around the world. My grandfather told us these kids come from all over the world, just to play here. He got us a hamburger and french fries (which, BTW, are STILL the best damned burgers and fries you could ever get at any ballpark to this day.

As we were standing there, underneath the grandstands, you could hear the screaming of the crowd, the cowbells....Ahhhh, the cowbells!!! NOTHING says summertime baseball as a kid to me like the sound of a good old-fashioned cowbell. The Far Eastern fans were CRAZY with those things. It is a huge shame that LL banned cow bells at the LLWS.....Makes me sad now.

I remember getting all antsy, and crazy, and my bro and I pulling and tugging on both arms of my grandfather to hurry up so we can see the action!, while he was trying to balance three hamburgers, fries, and three drinks. MAN, what a sight that musta been! Two little adorable twin boys, tugging on this big old heavy-set man's arms, while he is trying to hold all this food!

Anyway, somehow we eventually it made up another big, long, extremely high and steep, muddy hill along a path that led up the third base side of Lamade, where we could see all the action from that first, lower hill, looking down onto the field. My grandfather tried explaining who these kids were, where they came from, and why they were here. I didn't care one damned bit where the hell the kids were from. I was just mesmerized. I wanted to be down there, playing with them.

Anyway, that set up the tradition of my grandfather taking me and my bro to all the World Series game at the very end of each summer. It being late August, and school about to start, it was ALWAYS the last hurrah of a glorious summer. The crickets were loud, the fans even louder, and the cow bells from Japan, or China, or Taiwan, or whoever the hell represented the Far East, loudest. To this day, the Far Eastern team is always the one I root for the most. I love how spirited those people are. The Mexicans are just as crazy. lol.

But the best summer of all, was when I was finally in the boy's major's division of LL, at the age of 11, we went on to states, and lost. my older sister, and my older brother's teams did likewise in their respective divisions.

The year after that, the year I turned 12, we went to Regionals! Lost the first game, and won every game. It was double elimination, and the only team we had left to face, was Toms River NJ. They were thus far, undefeated, and we had a single loss, so we had to beat them twice, and they only had to beat us once. The first game, we won 4-3 in the 7th. And the second game was all tied up through 8 friggin innings! They ended up winning 3-0, going to the LLWS in 1995! They ended up losing in Pool play, going 1-2. The WS was a round robbin pool play.

Likewise, both of my older siblings' teams also made it to regionals. My dad grandfather took me and my twin to our competition, my dad went with my older brother, and my mom, and younger sister when with my older sister. My bro's team lost right away, and my sister's team was on the verge of making it to the softball WS, in Calamazoo Mich, I think it was. Or else the senior girls are held in Florida or something. Can;t remember now.

What's funny, is that the coaches of that team ended up caravaning with us back to Williamsport. In a way, I wish we had won, but in a way, I'm glad those kids got to experience what I am witness to each year. It really is quite an amazing spectacle. I guess that's why it's all over ESPN and so stuff every August. But when NJ didn;t make it to the semifinals, they decided to skip school, and stay in Williamsport until it was all done and over. Most teams go home as soon as they are eliminated. But they stayed on. And we played several scrimmage pickup games against them in the mornings before play would begin for the day, over the next couple of days. Yeah, the summer of 95 was definitely my most memorable ever.....

[knockahoma]

Hank Aaron sparked my love of baseball.

We moved to a little house in Albany, Georgia when I was about 8, and yes, thank you very much, we DID live next to a peanut field. It was this peanut field where one day I fell off a horse and was dragged through cloddy, peanut-rich ground, hooves flashing past my head while I thought, " Is this how it ends? In a peanut field?"

In-between near death experiences, my younger brother and I would play baseball with a plastic bat and ball, using the Braves starting lineup culled from the previous day's newspaper.

In 1972, my step-father drove me to Atlanta for the All-Star Game. Hank-Hysteria was in full force. He was only 50 or so homers from breaking Babe's record. Each homer was counted down in BIG BLACK HEADLINES in the Atlanta paper. HANK HITS NUMBER 654

We settled in the right field stands. Hank hit a homer and the stadium shook. When the Hammer trotted out to RF, the stadium erupted into a standing ovation. I just stood next to my father getting chills while Hank, maybe 50 feet away, ducked his head shyly and tipped his cap.

Right after that, I got my first APBA baseball game, then STRAT-O-MATIC.

In the mid 70s, you still had those slight, no-power middle infielders. Bobby Grich and Jorge Orta were monster 2b who could hit 13, or 14 homers!!!!

Baseball was much more like chess. Each position seemed to have an inherent strength and weakness. I lost absolute interest in bulked-up, steroidal baseball. All the positions now had the power of the Queen. No more pawns, knights, bishops.

So, when I play OOTP I tend to gravitate back into history even with fictional leagues, back before every baseball player was built like a line-backer. The strategy is much more rewarding.

I also play in God mode with an 8 team league. I play out every game, handling only substitutions. Being involved in every team multiplies the "great stories", and talk about torn loyalties!

Who do you vote for? Bottom of the 9th, bases loaded. It's the young fireballer with the cool nickname against that 34 year old 2B trying to get a hit and extend his career.

[His Own Bad Self]

In all honesty, I think what first got me into baseball was the numbers. No, seriously.

[Nutlaw]

Originally Posted by His Own Bad Self

In all honesty, I think what first got me into baseball was the numbers. No, seriously.

Likewise. First, the numbers. Second, the strategy.

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by Mr.Baseball

Obviously, if you play OOTP baseball the odds are you an avid baseball fan.

But what I want to know is what got you into the sport?

I really just wanted something to satisfy my thirst for a lot of stats. Thus, I got into baseball 2 and a half seasons ago, and the man in your avatar became my favorite player as I'm nearing dumping my Yankees (just too damn boring) for the Brewers (been my favorite NL team since I became a baseball fan).

[trendon]

Originally Posted by Mr.Baseball

Obviously, if you play OOTP baseball the odds are you an avid baseball fan.

But what I want to know is what got you into the sport?

Not so fast, my friend! I am a football and hockey guy.

I rather dislike baseball. I am a Mets fan - which might be more cause and effect than I'd like to admit - but not a baseball fan. There are countless things about baseball I do not like, even hate, and only a few things I do like.

One of the things I absolutely LOVE about baseball, though, is the statistical model that the game inherently has. A .260 hitter is a .260 hitter is a .260 hitter with little overall variation. And, even if there is variation - say he is traded to the Big Red Machine - you can do an excellent job on predicting what this will mean for him.

I love baseball video games (3D and text sim) but would rather watch anything else than watch a non-Mets (excluding Yankee games so I can root for the other team) game.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by trendon

A .260 hitter is a .260 hitter is a .260 hitter with little overall variation. And, even if there is variation - say he is traded to the Big Red Machine - you can do an excellent job on predicting what this will mean for him.

Not at all true.

A .260 hitter in Colorado is pretty terrible, compared to a .260 hitter in...say...Atlanta. Ballparks and their lcoations have a LOT to do with it.

[AnotherAlias]

Was taught how to catch a ball when I was four by my godmother's son. (He's a big time lawyer now with no time for me anymore)

Started playing little league at 7 and played through high school, college, and a Chicago semi-pro team in the late 80s and early 90s.

What I love most is the fact that it's mano y mano, pitcher against hitter. A battle to see who can win. Even though the team behind you (and in front...the catcher) are on your side, there is a chance that they can do nothing to help you, so most of the onus lies on that pitcher. That's the position I loved/played the most throughout my, ahem, career.

Going to games was great. Mostly Cubs games...don't rub it in cause they won most of the games I've attended in my life.

The smell of the ballpark, the hotdogs, cheering and even defeat are exciting. Watching a triple live is one of the greatest sports moments one can experience. I love the idea that pitchers can hit in the NL and managers can manage the game the way it was created. I don't hate the DH, but I don't believe it belongs either.

I could go on, but I gotta go.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by AnotherAlias

Was taught how to catch a ball when I was four by my godmother's son. (He's a big time lawyer now with no time for me anymore)

Started playing little league at 7 and played through high school, college, and a Chicago semi-pro team in the late 80s and early 90s.

What I love most is the fact that it's mano y mano, pitcher against hitter. A battle to see who can win. Even though the team behind you (and in front...the catcher) are on your side, there is a chance that they can do nothing to help you, so most of the onus lies on that pitcher. That's the position I loved/played the most throughout my, ahem, career.

Going to games was great. Mostly Cubs games...don't rub it in cause they won most of the games I've attended in my life.

The smell of the ballpark, the hotdogs, cheering and even defeat are exciting. Watching a triple live is one of the greatest sports moments one can experience. I love the idea that pitchers can hit in the NL and managers can manage the game the way it was created. I don't hate the DH, but I don't believe it belongs either.

I could go on, but I gotta go.

huh, you should check out that thread about that baseball anime I posted the other day.

I also prefer to watch the NL, with no DH. I loved the Braves. Orioles were my AL team.

[AnotherAlias]

Originally Posted by Nihilianth

I also prefer to watch the NL, with no DH. I loved the Braves. Orioles were my AL team.

But you don't like those teams anymore? Why the change?

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by AnotherAlias

But you don't like those teams anymore? Why the change?

I don't watch baseball much at all anymore, and I don't know even a single player on the Braves, except Chipper. I don't know any names on the Orioles at all....

I miss the Braves and Orioles of the 90s.

[Reader012]

I love football, especially college. And basketball interests me.

But sometimes I have to stop watching in frustration at how holding isn't called to the letter of the law, or pass interference, or fouls and other things in basketball isn't called to the letter of the law.

Maybe other people see the strike zone exactly the same as that kind of stuff, but I don't, and maybe that's just because I love baseball, or maybe that's a reason I love baseball. It could go either way.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Reader012

I love football, especially college. And basketball interests me.

But sometimes I have to stop watching in frustration at how holding isn't called to the letter of the law, or pass interference, or fouls and other things in basketball isn't called to the letter of the law.

Maybe other people see the strike zone exactly the same as that kind of stuff, but I don't, and maybe that's just because I love baseball, or maybe that's a reason I love baseball. It could go either way.

To be fair in basketball, though, most officials almost always decide not to call many fouls, especially if they aren't TOO bad. Reason why, is because it interrupts the flow of the game. Hearing the whistle being blown for every stupid little thing in a basketball game tends to frustrate players and fans alike. Even the officials themselves would rather see the game just "be played."