Today is warm spring day, the end of school is drawing nearer and nearer, and my homework load is getting lighter and lighter. In fact, spring just happens to be my second favorite time of the year. I would like to say that it’s my favorite time of the year, but the coming of spring also means the coming of baseball season, and that’s just a downer. You see, I strongly dislike baseball, and within the next two columned page of size 9 font writing, I’ll tell you why.
Let me start by saying that baseball players are some of the most non-athletic athletes in professional sports. They don’t have to eat right, or do any of the physically demanding tasks that other professional athletes have to do in order to earn playing time.
In fact, one of the hardest part of other sports, running, is just non-existent in baseball. While searching for a source to back this up, (as I’m trying to make this at least a little rooted in fact). I stumbled upon a Gizmodo article which compares the average distance run by players in sports ranging from soccer, to football to—yeah, you guessed it—baseball.
In the article the author starts addressing the idea of running in baseball with an oh-so-telling, “Ah-hahahahaha. Seriously? C’mon, cut it out.” He goes on to say, “most baseball players won’t run 100 yards during the course of a game unless you count the slow trot on and off the field between innings.” Now let me tell you, as a member of the Mayfield High School track team, I have friends who can run 100 yards in less than 12 seconds. The average baseball game takes around three hours. I shouldn’t have to do the math for you to figure out just how little running that is. I shouldn’t—but I did. That’s an average of a step of running every minute. At that rate, it would take you 52 hours to run a mile; or just under two months to run a marathon. Needless to say, running is just not part of baseball.
And I know that if you like baseball even in the slightest, you’re probably frustrated right now; you’re probably countering my argument with something along the lines of Caleb, baseball players have to hit a 2.9 inch ball which is hurling through space at upwards of 90 mph, with a wooden bat 2.6 inches thick, in order to just open the door to the possibility of scoring; so just because baseball doesn’t have lots of running, doesn’t make it extremely easy. I bet you couldn’t hit the ball.
Well, little voice in the back of your head, I agree that it’s probably really hard. And you’re right I couldn’t do it. But the thing is, neither can they. The average baseball player hits the ball 27 percent of the time. On any given pitch, chances are the batter is going to get a strike, which makes it exceptionally hard to stay interested in a game for over three hours. Baseball takes drawn out, low action games to the extreme-and that’s coming from a soccer fan.
Furthermore, baseball players play too much baseball—waaay too much baseball. Like 161 games per season too much baseball. And my problem with this is that each game is just like the last, and more like the next. If you Google baseball highlights, you’ll get to see some diving catches, home runs and maybe a few double plays. And those highlights are all very cool and they may even be thrilling. But for the amount of baseball games played in a season, baseballs more thrilling moment’s come few and far between.
Also, one of the silliest parts of baseball to me, a part widely regarded by fans as a bonus, is that the game can go on forever. There is no max inning that decides a tied game. No, instead, they all just have to step back out onto the field and carry on. The longest baseball game ever played lasted eight hours and 25 minutes, and took place over the course of 33 innings. In the time it took for that baseball game to end, you could have worked an entire shift at a nine-to-five job, watched four good movies, or walked a marathon—unless you were going at baseball pace, that is.
For me, these are some of my bigger reasons why baseball sucks. Because of its nine innings-slow moving structure, and the incredible level of difficulty that it takes to score points, coupled with its seemingly unending season and its potentially unending games, makes baseball my least favorite sport. But, I do concede that baseball is wildly popular, and II know that the Indians are having a pretty good year right now. And I guess that if people baseball a fun thing to watch and talk about, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t expect to see me at a game.
Caleb Lardner, a high school student, is not a baseball fan.