To the best of my recollection, I have never pounded on a teenager’s bedroom door and hollered, “TURN THAT MUSIC DOWN!” I never, ever, have groused that I used to walk 8 miles to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.
Yet one thing can bring out the curmudgeon in me.
Baseball.
Whether I’m in the press box or in the stands at Coors Field, as I will be tonight at the Rockies-Giants game, or watching a game on television, it seems that I spend about half my time grousing.
Grousing about:
Pants. Yes, pants. Baseball’s first all-professional team was called the Cincinnati Red Stockings because you could see their stockings. They didn’t wear their baseball pants as if they were slacks designed to touch the floor, or the dirt on the mound, infield, or batter’s box. I’m waiting for someone to trip over his own pants leg when rounding third, trying to score the winning run in Game 7 of the World Series.
Pitch counts. They not only should be banned from public display, but managers and coaches should have to undergo hypnosis in spring training to brainwash them from giving them importance. The same goes for this absurd reliance on the conventions of having separate “setup” men and “closers.” Any talk about “pitching the eighth inning” should involve a gut-instinct managing decision in a specific game, not a blanket description of a pitcher’s role. As with 99 percent of baseball strategy, it’s all done defensively: Learn the book, go by the book and baseball conventions, and you’re virtually immune to second-guessing, whether from fans or media.
Time. The average at-bat should not last longer than it takes world- record holder Hicham El Guerrouj to run the 1,500 meters. It should not be necessary for hitters to step out of the batter’s box after every pitch, tug at both batting gloves, spit, scratch, listen to the third-base coach yell something like, “Hannalingelbanna- wanna,” and give the radio announcer time to say that previous slider was brought to you by White Castle.
Seamheads. They want us to believe the double switch is the intellectual equivalent of splitting the atom. They keep coming up with ridiculous statistics, such as OBPIENIALHPO — On-Base Percentage in Even- Numbered Innings Against Left- Handed Pitching Opponents. They subject us to talk of release point, arm slotting and command, mainly because it sounds good. And above all, they want us to believe every hit in the history of Major League Baseball has come because the pitcher “got the ball up in the zone.”
Harrumph.
