Don’t hate me because I like baseball

Though it’s long and boring, it’s pretty awesome

Paige Kreutzwieser
Contributor

When I first started really getting into Major League Baseball, I struggled with the concept of watching the excessive 162-game season.

I like baseball a lot, but 162 games? Really? And that’s just the regular season.     Then add on another possible 43 games to be played in playoffs – I am still trying to learn how the heck it is possible for a fan to watch all these games and still proceed to have a life.

Yet, when October rolls around, I disregard all the months I half-heartedly tried to schedule baseball into my daily routine. I now go out of my way to watch every single game. Sorry midterms, you lose.

I love playoffs. The post-season in any sport is where memories are made. Clutch plays that can change the course of a sport’s history – and that can’t be true enough in baseball.

Being a sport depending so much on the strength and resilience of an individual, one player’s action can change any game.

I don’t see this emphasis on individual play as a negative thing. Pitcher versus batter only makes for an epic battle of survival of the fittest. Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be amazing to watch Detroit Tigers pitcher, Justin Verlander, chuck a 95 mph fastball at David Freese of the St. Louis Cardinals. I wonder if Freese could be as clutch in game seven of the World Series as he was in 2011?  

For those of you who don’t watch baseball, you are missing out. Executing necessary plays to get out of pressure situations has been a reoccurring theme in the 2012 MLB playoffs making them absolutely spectacular to watch.

The walk-off bombs, robbing of homeruns, A-Rod getting benched, and incredible ninth inning nail biters that have made for a dynamic MLB post-season.

Now, it’s apparent that there are many people who don’t enjoy baseball. I can understand why with the lengthy games, mostly ancient and drab announcers, the irregularity of spectacular plays throughout each pitch, and for those who really despise baseball, the list goes on.

However, I really enjoy watching baseball, because it is such a unique sport. A hitter has only split seconds to find a ball coming at them at roughly 90-some mph, and hit it in such an accurate way to make it go where they want just seems amazing.

And what sport can an athlete fail over half the time and still be considered a great player?

That brings me to statistics. I hate math, but for some reason I love baseball statistics. There are way too many stats and facts, but they are what make watching just as appealing as listening to a game. Who didn’t want to know during the sixth inning of Cardinals and Giants game on Oct. 21 that popsicles were made in San Francisco in 1905? I am now more knowledgeable, so thank you baseball.

I will never be able to defend baseball without being “bettered” by someone who doesn’t like it. It’s inevitable. You either love the sport or you hate it, but trying to tell someone who enjoys the game why it is a worse than watching paint dry is just plain rude. Just let it go.

And those of you who are dedicated whole-heartedly to the sport, I think you have an interesting two weeks ahead of you.

No matter how many people try to predict an outcome, the beauty of baseball is that it can all come down to just one swing of the bat.