For any of you who think I'm stupid for that headline, you need to watch more classic Saturday Night Live.
Baseball hasn't always been good to me, but I love it anyway. I love that it has slow moments and fast moments. I love the strategy and the instincts it takes to win a game. I love 98 mph fastballs and deathly slow knuckleballs. I love three-run homers and sacrifice bunts. I love a runner turning the corner at thrid and steaming down the baseline like a freight train into the catcher. I love the catcher standing his ground and tagging the runner out to to keep his team ahead.
I love baseball. I love playing baseball, even though I'm not very good at it. I do not throw well and I hate running. If I can connect with the ball, the ball is usually over or near the fence. But that's only IF I connect. I'm a strikeout king. But I still love playing ball. Just a game of catch is good enough to get me excited.
Last night (techniclly today, since the games were in Tokyo) the new World Baseball Classic began. I watched Korea beat China Taipei (also know as Taiwan) 2-0. good hitting, good pitching, great fundamental ball for the most part. twice, however, Korea nearly blew it. One runner dove head first into first base trying to beat a throw. He would have made it, as the ball took a looping hop ten feet before the bag. The runner slammed his shoulder into the bag, causing him to leave the game. The second bonehead play came with a runner on third. The Koreans are big fans of "small ball" meaning the will bunt men over even with their heavy hitters at the plate. In this case, the team captain lead off from third. the batter showed bunt but thepitch was high so he let it go. The runner thought this was supposed to be a "suicide squeeze" play. In a squeeze, the batter's main objective is to connect witht he ball no matter how bad the pitch is. This is because the runner starts running the moment the batter squares up and shows bunt. If the hitter fails to connect, the catcher gets the ball and can easily throw out the runner on third. Sometimes a blown suicide squeeze results in a rundown or "pickle" with the defense throwing the ball back and forth until they can finally tag out the runner somewhere in the middle. Pickles are great fun to watch but not as easy as they look. This play did not result in a pickle. Instead, the runner (captain of the Korean team, remember) was thrown out at third as he tried to avoid the tag and reach for the base.
Korea still won, mostly due to pitching.
I love baseball. The World Baseball Classic is like compressing an entire season into 17 days, playoffs and all. At the end, the winning team can truly call themselves a World Champion.
If anyone has tickets to the Round One games in Scottsdale, Arizona or Round Two in Anaheim, or the Finals in San Diego and wants to let me have them, I'd be more than happy to take them off your hands. Hell, if you have tickets to any game, let me know. If you want to pick me up for a game to the Las Vegas 51s I might even buy the tickets.
www.worldbaseballclassic.com www.lv51.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment