Baseball Season Starts Soon

I love baseball.  I understand it better than most other sports.  And I just finished re-watching Kens Burn's 'Baseball' PBS production. 

It "nicer" than most sports.  Many people have decsribed it, but to MY mind, none better than George Carlin.  I won't post the whole statement here, but it's HERE.

I'll paste SOME of it though: 

"Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death."

"In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!"

"
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium."

And I'll add some gleanings from the Ken Burn's production...

Baseball is the only game where the Defense has the ball.

The is no clock in baseball.  The batter comes to the plate, the pitcher steps off the mound.  The pitcher returns to the plate and the batter steps out to wipe his eyes or adjust his grip on the bat.  The umpire sweeps the dirt off the home plate.  The pitcher begins his delivery, the batter swings.  Or doesn't.  Theoretically, a game could last forever.  And some seem to.

A batter who only hits the ball safely 1/3 of the time is a hero!

Batters "hit safely" and if they round the bags they come "home".  In football (American), they battle their way into the END zone leaving fallen players scattered around on the field.

In baseball, if you hit a home run, you get to trot around the bases at a leisurely slow speed, assured that the fans and teamates know it was YOU who did that.  In football, no one ever really knows who did what to cause a play to work.

And while where is some contact in baseball, it is not routine.  In football, basketball, hockey, boxing, and wrestling, players are pounding each other, throwing elbows, slamming each other with equipment, etc. 

Baseball players have most of their original teeth.  In other sports, teeth are just temporary things.

I can't wait for baseball season to start again!