The crack of the bat, the sound of baseballs thumping into gloves, the infield chatter are like birdsong to the baseball starved.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Baseball is a movable conversation across nine innings. It is eye contact with the person seated next to you in a park where the pitcher is separated from the batter by 60 feet, six inches or in a family room where a 60-inch TV screen hangs on the wall.
Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you.
Baseball can be slow in many ways. The action starts with when the pitcher delivers the ball. But the action really starts when the crack of the bat happens.
Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.
Baseball is a game that shouts, 'Slow Down' to America. Stop tweeting, texting, blogging, watching cable news, and obsessing about polls, lost planes, and focus-group-driven politicians.
Baseball is a team game.
Baseball skills schizophrenically encompass a pitcher's, a batter's and a fielder's.
Baseball is a universe as large as life itself, and therefore all things in life, whether good or bad, whether tragic or comic, fall within its domain.
Baseball guys tend to flock towards steaks.
The phrase 'off with the crack of the bat', while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat.