Baseball's unique style
Baseball is unique among American sports in several ways. This uniqueness is a large part of its longstanding appeal and strong association with the American psyche. The philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as a national religion. Many people believe that baseball is the ultimate combination of skill, timing, athleticism, and strategy. Yogi Berra (a Hall of Fame baseball player) once said, "Baseball is 90% mental—the other half is physical." In this, baseball is similar to its cousin game cricket: in many Commonwealth nations, cricket and the culture surrounding it hold a similar place and affection to baseball's role in American culture.
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The lure of baseball is in its subtleties: situational defense, pitch location, pitch sequence, base running, batting strategies, statistics, ballparks, history, and player personalities. It's been noted that the game itself has no time limit, and its playing surface, rather than rigidly rectangular and standardized, extends theoretically to eternity from a single point (home plate) to beyond its own fences. For the avid fan, the game—even during its slowest points—is never boring because of these nuances. Therefore, a full appreciation of baseball naturally requires some knowledge of the rules; it also requires deep observation of those endearing and enduring qualities that give baseball its unique style. |
Time element
Basketball, ice hockey, American football, and soccer all use a clock, and games often end by a team with the lead killing the clock rather than competing directly against the opposing team. In contrast, baseball has no clock; a team cannot win without getting the last batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. Other semi-major sports that do not have a time limit are tennis and golf, although these are individual as opposed to team sports.
In recent decades, observers have criticized professional baseball for the length of its games, with some justification as the time required to play a baseball game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the 20th century, games typically took an hour and a half to play. In the 1920s, they averaged just under two hours, which eventually ballooned to 2 hours and 38 minutes in 1960. Though in 1975, the average length of games was 2 hours 25 minutes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. By the turn of the 21st century, games had got so long that Major League Baseball's goal in 2004 was to get the average game down to 2 hour and 45 minutes, after coming close in 2003 at 2 hours and 46 minutes
The lengthening of games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes, and a slower pace of play. In response, Major League Baseball mandated a maximum break between half-innings, while instructing umpires to be stricter in enforcing speed-up rules and the size of the
Although the official rules specify that when the bases are empty, the pitcher should deliver the ball within 12 seconds of receiving it (with the penalty of a ball called if he fails to do so), this rule is rarely, if ever, enforced. The umpire also has the option of calling a balk if there are runners on base, but is also rarely, if ever, enforced.
Individual and team
Baseball is fundamentally a team sport—even a franchise financially blessed enough to afford two or three Hall of Fame-caliber players cannot count on success. Yet it places individual players under great pressure and scrutiny. The pitcher must make good pitches or risk losing the game; the hitter has a mere fraction of a second to decide what pitch has been thrown and whether to swing at it. While managers and coaches can signal players to pursue certain strategies, no one can help the pitcher while he pitches or the hitter while he bats. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder, as the last line of defense, makes the lone decision to try to catch it or play it on the bounce. Baseball's history is full of heroes and goats—men who in the heat of the moment (the "clutch") distinguished themselves with a timely hit or catch, or an untimely strikeout or error.
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