With the Red Sox holding a 3-2 lead going back to Fenway, it’s been three straight nights of tardy bedtimes.
But it’s been a great show. Not always perfect baseball, but exciting baseball. Games ending on obstruction calls and pick-offs. The Red Sox making errors almost every game, but getting the clutch hits when they need them.
The World Series is especially great to watch on TV (free TV!) because of detailed coverage with numerous camera angles. There are countless replays showing the spin on the ball, the bats vibrating as they make contact with a pitch, you can count the gray hairs in the pitcher’s beard.
The pitch tracker shows how often the home plate umpire misses the call, which has been surprisingly often. It goes both ways – both teams, balls instead of strikes, strikes instead of balls – so I guess it evens out at least.
Most enjoyable is being able to enjoy the sport for the sport itself. It took me decades to learn not to hate certain sports teams. Somehow, the more I hated them, the better they did.
Now, I might or might not have a rooting interest, but have settled down to the point of being able to like just about every team. My cheering this week is for the Series to go a full 7 games.
The final out means no more baseball until next spring, and another long winter is nearly upon us.
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I vaguely remember a few years ago when the baseball coverage would show the statistical chance of success in each current situation – for example, how often a team would score, say, with a man on first and one out in the eighth inning. This feature disappeared as quickly as it surfaced – I suspect, because it ruined the game for fans.
Baseball is about hope – hope that something good will happen in each situation even though the chances are somewhat remote. There’s a chance of a home run on every pitch, but if you figure out how often a home run actually occurs, it’s not very often (it appears to be safely under 1 percent). I suppose it’s like if at a casino, you were clearly informed before each bet how much the odds are against you. That’s no fun.
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