July 30, 2017, will always be remembered by five individuals associated with America’s pastime, baseball. On that day, in Cooperstown, New York, five men, players Tim Raines, Pudge Rodriquez, and Jeff Bagwell, along with John Schuerholz, a top executive and Bud Selig, a former Commissioner of Baseball, were enshrined in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame celebrate the history of this grand and elegant game. Featured are the records of teams and individuals who made this a staple of the American scene. Relics and memorabilia fill its rooms and exhibits, and fans flock to this upstate New York village each year to sate their passion for this pastime.
The history of baseball is mixed and varied, and much of the origins are disputed and lost in the mists of time. For much of the first part of the 20th century, fans were told that the game was “invented” by Abner Doubleday in 1839 in Cooperstown, hence the locale for the Hall of Fame. That has been thoroughly debunked, as was the subsequent claim that Alexander Cartwright was the originator of baseball. Neither of them, during their lifetime, ever claimed the honor.
Probably, baseball evolved from the English game of “rounders” with some elements of “cricket”, though a direct link cannot be established. From the 1840s to the 1870s the game began to take its present shape. Dimensions of the diamond and the number of innings played, along with balls and strikes being codified as part of the game. In the latter part of the 19th century, overhand pitching was allowed.
In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first “professional” baseball team, charging admission to watch the games and playing its players. They recruited the best and were not defeated until well into the next season. By 1876, the first “major” league was established, the National League, which has lasted until the present day. In 1901, the American League came into being. These two “major” leagues had eight teams apiece until the 1960s, when expansion increased the number to the thirty which exist today.
There are several good books that detail the history of the game, but that is not the focus of my writing today. According to polls, professional football is the most popular sport today, and pro basketball has millions of adherents. But neither of these sports fit the American spirit as does baseball. In football, large 300 pound linemen are common, and even the “skilled” positions, quarterback, running back, wide receiver and defensive back typically have players who top 200 pounds and 6 feet tall. Not your average American, I believe! Basketball is dominated by men who are 6’5″ or better. From personal experience, tall trumps talent most of the time. My classmate, whom I will call David, was 6’7″ tall, and as a freshman was on the varsity. Not as athletic as anyone else who tried out for the team, his height insured his placement on the roster. Proof of this was the fact that I could actually jump higher off the floor than David, but he had over a foot advantage to begin with. So today in basketball you see these huge men jockeying for position, banging into each other with the force of a small collision. Again, those who play this for a living are not typical adult men. Because of the skill sets needed, players do not need to be physically intimidating to play baseball, and many men in their 60s and 70s still play a variation of baseball, slow-pitch softball, enabling them to relive the “glory days” of their youth.
Experiencing a baseball game is inherently more satisfying. Smaller players can and have excelled at the sport. “Wee” Willie Keeler of ancient fame didn’t reach the level of the smallest football or basketball player. Pete Rose was short and stubby. Howie Pollett was a short but gifted pitcher. Of course you had the large players, like Ted Kluszewski of the Reds or Harmon Killibrew of the Twins and or even Babe Ruth with his barrel chest. People of “normal” stature could and did succeed in the major leagues.
Another advantage baseball has is its aesthetics. Coming through the tunnels leading to the stands at a major league park is revealing in its looks, as apart from the stadiums and gymnasiums of football and basketball. What you see is a beautiful, sculpted picture — a diamond-shaped playing field, with brilliant green grass. Its symmetry is unchanged since the 1840s, with 90 feet between bases and sixty feet, six inches from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. The national anthem is played, and we watch as players run out to their positions for the opening pitch. (As an aside, playing The Star Spangled Banner is of recent vintage, begun as a patriotic gesture during World War 2.) This evokes memories of young men over the nation doing the same, sprinting onto the sand lots and diamonds of high schools of their youth to find their positions. Memories of games and teammates come back, the successes (and failures) of past glories. I can still picture the field on which I played for four years back in the ’50s, with the backstop close to the railroad tracks that ran through town. Blue sky above, fellow ball players ready and the first pitch is made — an unforgettable picture for many men who played during their youth.
One of the distinct advantages of baseball is what it doesn’t have — a clock. At the beginning of the development of the game in America, it was decided to simply play nine innings. However quickly or slowly the game progressed, each side would get nine times at bat and have to defend against the opponent nine times. No overtime here, no clock to watch, no arbitrary time limit. When extra innings are needed to decide the contest, no clock is used. Each team will get one inning to try to come up with the added tally to win. Going into the late innings, teams know how many more times they have to seal the victory, as fans and players look at the scoreboard counting down the nine innings. No better experience can a fan have than to seen his team making a rally in their final at bat, a feeling expressed in one of America’s best known poems, Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in 1888. The scene is the last of the ninth and the fictional Mudville team is losing by two runs. All the home fans, 5000 of them, knew that if Casey, their star slugger, got to the plate, their chances of winning would increase to almost certainty. With two quick outs, it was apparent that Casey, the fifth player in the inning, probably would not get a chance to hit. Two weak hitters preceded him, Flynn and Baker. But hit they did, and on second and third gave the hometown hero the opportunity to win the game. But it was not to be, as the last line of the poem relates: “but there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out.” But in the other two sports, the clock is the enemy, and even if a mighty rally is mounted, many times it dies when the zeroes appear on the scoreboard.
One of the unique aspects of baseball is often overlooked. When a team is on offense, the other team controls the ball. Not so in any other major sport where the play is controlled by the offensive team, and everything is done to get back on offense. With the pitcher being the dominant factor in each at bat, a player who succeeds by getting a hit only thirty percent of the time (a .300 hitter) to be considered a star. In a sense this mirrors life for many ordinary Americans, who feel they are at odds with a life which pitches at them all the problems they face. Few, if any, of us have no times in our past lives where we could wish to have another at bat sat a critical juncture. With this offensive disadvantage, even the best teams lose at least 40 percent of the time.
Compared to football and basketball, one of baseball’s advantages is that the rules have changed little in the past 150 years. One which has permeated the language is “three strikes and you’re out!”, a phrase even introduced into some states’ criminal codes. With the other two major sports, there are always new restrictions on how play is conducted. Football has tweaked the rules to protect the quarterback, how a tackle is made and where on the field each defensive player is allowed in relation to the receiver. Basketball’s defensive rules have changed drastically over the years. When I played, if we even touched our opponent, it was a foul. In addition, we were required to raise our hand when we fouled, admitting out “crime” to all who were in attendance. Nowadays, we see huge men virtually assaulting the other team, with no foul called. And, instead of admitting the foul, we see players arguing with the ref about the call.
One of the charms of baseball is its reliance on umpires to control the game’s action and flow. Sometimes they get it wrong and fans have talking points for years to come. Only seldom do individual calls by the officials have a direct impact on winning the championship, but they abound in baseball. Bias alert! I have been a St. Louis Cardinal fan since the early 1950s, as the following two examples will show. In 1985, a missed call in the World Series gave the Kansas City Royals the World Series. Since then I have claimed the MVP of that series was the first base umpire, who blew a call that even Mr. Magoo could have made. A controversial call by an umpire of the infield fly rule (too complicated to quickly explain here) in the 2011 playoffs in Atlanta, provided a crucial out for the Cardinals to advance to the World Series, which they subsequently won. Rarely does a single call affect a “world” championship in football or basketball, giving baseball the edge in the human factor.
Other differences demonstrate the superiority of baseball. Field dimensions have remained the same in America’s pastime — the before mentioned distances between bases and between pitcher and catcher. Football still has its hundred yard field (unless you are in Canada at 110 yards or in arena football which varies with the size of the venue), but the stripes on the field are expanded for play. In basketball, the length of the floor has expanded as players got larger and faster. Baseball also gives a more leisurely play. When attending a major league game, a person could visit the bathroom or concession stand and miss only a pitch or two. This is not so with the frenetic pace of teams battling their opponent and the clock, where a few seconds missed might mean not seeing a crucial play in the game. If you are into people watching in crowds, a baseball contest is the place to be.
Individual matchups are vital in baseball. Which pitcher does a certain hitter do best against? Which pitcher seems to dominate which team? In a crucial situation, such matchups become pivitol to the outcome of the contest. A manager must also look to pinch hit for a player (usually a pitcher) and knowing what tendencies are out there is needed to have chance for the win. Allied with this are the statistics kept on each team and its players. This gives fans the opportunity to argue for the superior talents of their hometown team over others. Even though Ted Williams had a higher batting average for his career, I would argue that Stan Musial, eleven points behind, was a better all-round player because of his fielding, running and throwing abilities. Baseball fans love to argue the relative merits of teams and players. This comes because baseball play revolves around a single player’s achievements rather than collective play. In football, a runner or passer is about as good as his supporting cast. Basketball’s assist category exists because many times a basket is made when a teammate passes the ball to the scorer. Even rebounds sometimes reflect teamwork, when a player “blocks out” his opponent to allow the rebound to be captured by one of his own. Even defense is more team oriented in football and basketball than in baseball. One of the baseball Hall of Fame members is Ozzie Smith of the Cardinals, whose defensive ability, one on one against the hitters, propelled him into that elite status.
If you are undecided about what sport to follow, my suggestion would be to make your first stop baseball. For many reasons, it is the superior game, an All-American game, one to be savored as you watch, and perhaps play yourself. For leisure time, it is the best. If you are looking for a team to support, the Cardinals could use a few more fans.