{"id":1268,"date":"2009-06-12T12:24:27","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T19:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/12\/where-is-the-love\/"},"modified":"2009-06-12T12:26:03","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T19:26:03","slug":"where-is-the-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/12\/where-is-the-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Is the Love?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After returning from almost two weeks disconnected from professional sports to find his Yankees winless against the Red Sox, Josh Deitch desperately reminds himself why he loves baseball.<\/em><\/p>\n

Prior to Thursday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Yankees-Red Sox game, my buddy Larry\u00e2\u20ac\u201da sports polygamist of the worst kind, having grown up in New York and now rooting for all things Boston\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsent me the following email:<\/p>\n

I’m going to Fenway tonight and seeing CC pitch at Fenway for the first time this year. I can see it going one of two ways. The Red Sox crushing him early and blowing the Yanks away again…OR CC holds them to one or two runs, pitches a gem and then gets let down when the Yanks bullpen coughs up the lead in the 8th. It’s a toss-up :-).<\/em><\/p>\n

I hate Larry right now.\u00c2\u00a0 I told him so.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yankees are now 0-8 against the Red Sox this season.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to keep myself from guzzling a gallon of gasoline or buying a high-powered rifle and hunting down Alfredo Aceves, who wound up with a blown save by allowing three inherited runners to score, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m instead going to remind myself of a few of the 3,756,842 reasons why I love baseball.<\/p>\n

(Special thanks to Bill Simmons for the format idea\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call it an homage and not a rip-off, shall we?)<\/p>\n

Reason no. 386: Nolan Ryan<\/strong>
\nWith a career punctuated by 324 wins, 5,714 strikeouts, and seven no-hitters, it would be an understatement to characterize Ryan as a legend.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite Ryan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obscene longevity, he retired in 1993, just as I began to come of age as a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I never got to see or appreciate him in his prime.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, I listened as announcers spoke his name, their voices tinged with awe.\u00c2\u00a0 I watched footage of his sixth and seventh no-no\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, and laughed with my friends at the water fountain as we recounted the time he put Robin Ventura in a headlock and pummeled the third baseman about the head and shoulders.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Flash forward almost two decades, and Ryan once again threatens to redefine the pitching landscape of Major League Baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 This time he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing it from the owner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box.\u00c2\u00a0 When Ryan took the reigns of the Rangers, he did what we, as fans have demanded for years: he threw out pitch counts.\u00c2\u00a0 Flaunting the throwback toughness that defines the legend of Nolan Ryan, he demanded that his pitchers work on their stamina and conditioning and prepare to pitch deep into ballgames.\u00c2\u00a0 While the Rangers pitching staff may not shock the world with their 23rd ranked team ERA, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s winning ballgames.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of dishing off the sixth through ninth innings to ineffective middle relievers, Ryan and manager Ron Washington keep the ball in the hands of their pitchers, who have rewarded them by ranking second in the league with five complete games and have kept Texas in games long enough to allow the offense with the second best slugging percentage in the American League to take over.\u00c2\u00a0 As of this moment, Texas has the AL West in a Ryan-like headlock.<\/p>\n

Reason no. 5: A hot dog and a beer is a nutritious meal<\/strong>
\nWell, it is, in relation to the philly cheesesteak sandwich on the garlic wedge or the extra-large order of nachos drowned in processed cheese and ground beef.<\/p>\n

Reason no. 2,999,999: Mother Nature\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s machinations<\/strong>
\nIn the bottom of the tenth in Cleveland on Thursday, Shin-Soo Choo hit a frozen rope of a line drive into center field.\u00c2\u00a0 Coco Crisp charged the ball as Mark DeRosa rounded third.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the fact that Crisp\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arm lives a double life as a wet noodle, the crowd rose in anticipation of a close play at the plate.\u00c2\u00a0 It never happened.\u00c2\u00a0 DeRosa touched home without a throw, <\/a>because Choo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s liner had bounced a few times off the outfield turf and once off the wing of a seagull hunting midges in centerfield before ricocheting past Crisp.\u00c2\u00a0 The seagull was fine.\u00c2\u00a0 The Royals, on the other hand, earned their 34th loss on the season.<\/p>\n

Between midges attacking Joba Chamberlain, to a bird exploding as it got caught in the crossfire between a Randy Johnson fastball and his catcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glove, baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with nature is unlike that of any other sport.\u00c2\u00a0 Birds, squirrels, gnats, moths, and bats have been known to intervene in tense baseball moments.\u00c2\u00a0 In regards to baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being at one with the natural world, Ralph Waldo Emerson would approve.<\/p>\n

Reason no. 25: It plays well on the radio.<\/strong>
\nInvite a few friends to your house.\u00c2\u00a0 Throw some burgers on the grill.\u00c2\u00a0 Crack open a beverage of your choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Turn on a local radio broadcast of a baseball game.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank me later.<\/p>\n

Reason no. 2: Magic Numbers<\/strong>
\nNo other sport has numbers that have been ingrained into American culture as a whole.\u00c2\u00a0 Number 42 represents one man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s courage that extended beyond that of normal people.\u00c2\u00a0 Joe DiMaggio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 56-game hit streak represents an accomplishment that may never be seen again.\u00c2\u00a0 The same holds true for Cal Ripken\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2,632 consecutive games played.\u00c2\u00a0 Discounting the past <\/a><\/strong>decade, 500 homeruns put a hitter in the Hall of Fame, same with 3,000 hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Twenty wins in a season for a pitcher is a benchmark of excellence.\u00c2\u00a0 Thirty is a season for the record books.\u00c2\u00a0 Randy Johnson just recorded his 300th win.\u00c2\u00a0 Congratulate him, we may not see that again.<\/p>\n

Reason no. 500,219: The uniforms of the 1976 Chicago White Sox<\/strong>
\nShorts!?\u00c2\u00a0 Really??\u00c2\u00a0 Never before or since has a Major League baseball team looked more like it should have played its games with a full keg propped up behind the pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After returning from almost two weeks disconnected from professional sports to find his Yankees winless against the Red Sox, Josh Deitch desperately reminds himself why he loves baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}