One more month until the start of spring training. Less than that until pitchers, catchers, and injured players report. Baseball, even without fans in the stands to start, is back. To fully get what baseball should be, one must study the game, present and past.
The smell of the grass. The smell of the wood and pine tar. What about the leather? In wintertime, tropical countries become the focal point of on-field action while in temperate countries off-field activities commence, like scouting, signing, cutting, and trading players.
Baseball is unlike any other sport. There are games every day/night for several months, with limited exceptions. So a team starting 2-15 won’t be out of postseason contention at that point whereas a team that starts 15-2 won’t be a shoe-in for the playoffs.
One aspect of baseball I used to enjoy so much is the home run because, growing up, they weren’t that common. Today, however, the emphasis is on launch angle, a good way to hit more homers but also strike out more frequently. The home run has been desecrated because it went from being sacred to being common.
Speaking of striking out, the hitting fundamentals of the two strike approach to hitting have largely vanished. A strikeout is generally a wasted at-bat. The emphasis with two strikes should be to put the ball in play. Today’s players don’t seem to have been taught that.
In order to understand baseball, one should study its history and the contemporary game. When it comes to sports, baseball was my first love. It is the sport of thinking, meaning it is mostly mental. It is also a game where the participants use strategy the most.
Let’s play ball.