Baseball...

UtahPirate · Post by **UtahPirate** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:10 pm

All of us are licking the wounds of a really poor 2016 season. I'm so disappointed in our efforts in St. Louis. Actually mad about the lineup that Hurdle put on the field on Saturday (what I felt was our best opportunity to beat the Cards, which I wanted to do badly). There is a lot of well-deserved anger on the board and I think every board member is trying to sort out the how's and why's this team underperformed by 20 games from last season.

I was given this quote from a blogger my oldest son follows for 'his' team in another city. Made me feel better and I thought I'd share it with my cyber brothers (and sisters?) here at OBN:

"My favorite thing about baseball is its depth, and richness. I know of no other sport, perhaps no other activity, that provides a wider breadth of possible engagement to more people than this silly game. It meets the young and old, sick and healthy, American and foreign, wherever we are when we come to it. It serves as a shared family legacy, an escape from poverty, a lifelong hobby, a place for mathematicians and poets to walk, if not arm and arm, at least astride each other.

It is a game that can be taken in so casually, with the utmost nonchalance. Its pace and rhythms allow the space for your words, your conversation, your wandering focus. It will still be there, whenever you decide to circle back. Maybe that beautiful crack will sound out, and you'll be forced back in a way that doesn't feel rude, or harsh; a grateful interruption.

It is an ocean we cannot find the bottom to, no matter how deep we swim. It's a game with history extending a century and a half, and we still, no matter how much we look at, probe, poke, twist, warp, and examine it, cannot reveal all its secrets. In a world so well mapped, so well known, there is such a freedom to knowing our game can inspire so many great minds to bend their efforts to finding more, to understanding it.

It is every bit of both these things, and all of the space in between. I have spent my entire life loving baseball, as a casual, emotional youth, and as an obsessive, (slightly) less emotional adult. Whoever I was, wherever I was, baseball has met me, and shown to me whichever part of itself I needed most, at that time. It is, I am convinced, the single greatest game we humans have ever devised."

People write beautiful things about 'my' game. Thanks to all of you posters here who add to the richness of my baseball experience, who continually make me laugh, who provide daily commentary on my very favorite subject, and who so often write things that reflect my own elation and frustration. Here's to a better ending in 2017!

Quail · Post by **Quail** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:29 pm

Very cool Utah! Thanks for posting!

DemDog · Post by **DemDog** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 9:18 pm

This has to be one of the best posts in the history of OBN. And that goes back before I got involved.

Want to share with you all that the 2 guys who started this Forum, Richard Mathews and Gunner were kinda like this writer with their love for baseball. Richard has moved on and Gunner, well he has had some health problems but is still around when we need him. I am sure that there are others out there in OBN land who feel much like the author of that blog post. I thank him for his great explanation of the greatest game in the world. Baseball.

PMike · Post by **PMike** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 9:33 pm

Agreed. Thanks for sharing. And I echo the thankfulness for the wide expressions of baseball found here. It would we worthless if we all thought the same things.

JollyRoger · Post by **JollyRoger** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 11:58 pm

In an age of instant gratification, of racing to beat a clock, of wanting and getting data at the click of a mouse...Baseball will always be timeless and will stand the test of time.