One more proof that baseball is the greatest sport...

I can watch most sporting events with some degree of interest, and in the case of the American Big Four: football, basketball, hockey, and baseball, with a reasonably high degree of understanding and knowledge. I know the plot, I know (mostly) the rules, I know that stories, I know the histories. And for the sports I neither understand nor know anything about - as so often come before me during the Olympics - I am perfectly capable of developing instant expertise. ("How could they have given her a 5? That performance was clearly an 8.")

But the one sport that I hold in my heart, the one sport that I truly love, is baseball.

This has a lot to do with my history. Although he never developed much of an interest in basketball, my father was a sports fan, and his greatest love was baseball. He'd played football, baseball, and hockey through high school, but he'd played baseball beyond, playing for a pass-the-hat, semi-pro team through his twenties. He probably made less than a buck a game. A lot less. But although he never made the claim - and would have laughed at it - I guess it could be said that my father had been a professional athlete. Anyway, he really loved baseball.

And I really loved my father, and I fell in love with baseball sitting with him in the living room, listening - on the combo record player-radio console cabinet - to broadcasts of weekday night games, and sitting with him in the family room watching televised weekend games.

One of my first memories - I was 2 and change - is toddling over to the small-screen black and white Philco and trying to pick a player off the screen. I remember my attempt to grab that tiny little black and white ballplayer, which I now suspect was at the urging of my father, who probably wanted some opposing player picked off base.

As a kid, I read about baseball in the newspaper, in The Sporting News, in Sports Illustrated. And in books about baseball history, biographies of baseball players of yore. Thus, I could talk to my father about Nap Lajoie, Walter "Big Train" Johnson, and Chick Gagnon - a local fellow who made it to the big leagues and whom my father, as a kid, had watched playing for Holy Cross. 

Ah, baseball. 

Last week, the baseball season ended. (On November 2nd. Remember when we used to call the World Series the October Classic?)

This makes me sad, as I will miss it, and am already looking forward to Truck Day, when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves for spring training. 

During the regular baseball season, I watch (or listen to: baseball is a great radio sport) at least a few innings of almost every Red Sox game - and keep a smartphone eye on the games I'm not watching or listening to. Come October, I'm watching a lot of playoff games, whoever's playing.

This year, for the first time in a while, the October gamers included the Red Sox. Which surprised me, as after a very poor start last spring I figured they could well lose 100 games. Instead, they ended up with an 89-73 record, and grabbed a Wild Card spot.

Alas, the Olde Towne Team didn't make it past the dreaded Yankees in the Wild Card Playoffs. But they did win one game out of the best-of-three. And they were playing in October.

And, blessedly, the Toronto Blue Jays dispatched the loathsome Yankees. Start spreading the news: O, Canada! 

I watched an awful lot of those October games, including the insane 15 inning game between Seattle and Detroit. And although I could have gone either way, I was happy to see Seattle make it to the American League Championship Series. 

I could have gone either way - Blue Jays or Mariners - to win the ALCS, which went seven exciting games. (Even the blow outs were exciting in their own ways.) I would have been delighted to see the Mariners make it to their first World Series - bonus point that they're in Seattle, and Trump is on the verge of declaring war on the state of Washington. I would have been equally delighted to see the Canadian team win. They are, after all, something of the 51st state. 

So I was happy to see Toronto move on and win the ALCS in a nail-biter. 

On the National League front, I was hoping for anybody but the Dodgers to take the NLCS. Yes, I love Mookie Betts and will never forgive the Red Sox for letting him go. I liked Kiké Hernandez during his brief stint with my boys of summer. And I will remain forever grateful to Coach Dave Roberts for the key role he played in bringing the 2004 Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years. 

I was especially sad that Milwaukee Brewers - a small market, blue collar, lunch pail, scrappy kind of team - got swept by the Dodgers. 

But I will say here and now that the Baseball Hall of Fame might as well induct Dodger Shohei Ohtani next July and forget about waiting for five years after he retires. If Shohei ain't the GOAT, I'll eat my cap. 

On to the World Series, and Go, Toronto! Even though Trump has considerable enmity towards both California and Canada, which meant that either a Dodgers or a Blue Jays win was likely to trigger him, I felt very strongly that I needed to root against the Evil Empire West - the LA Dodgers.

(As an aside - but a relevant one - the teams that went the farthest, the Dodgers, with a payroll of $321M (second in the MLB to the hapless Mets) and the Blue Jays with a $240M (fifth in payroll) were both big spenders. The teams on the losing side were below the Mendoza line with respect to spending. Seattle's payroll was $148M (16th in the majors), while Milwaukee's was $115M (23rd). Both of these teams punched above their weight, and it would be good for the sport and the soul if at some point soon a lower spending team went all the way.)

I watched the few games, and lasted 16 innings - up until 2 a.m. - in Game 3, which went 18 innings and ended in an LA win. But when it got down to Games 5 and beyond, I was mostly keeping an eye on what was happening, and jumped in when the outcome seemed determined, or - in the case of the sixth game - when I honestly thought (or at least honestly hoped) that the Jays would pull off a ninth inning miracle. Which they kinda-sorta almost did. But didn't.

So on to Game 7.

Sports purists, and I count many family members and friends among them, love when championship series - baseball, basketball, hockey - go seven gmes. I don't.

I date my seventh game oogs to the Red Sox losing their first World Series appearance in my lifetime - that would be 1967 - in the final game. I decided there and then that I would never watch a seventh game of a World Series the home town honeys were playing in. So I didn't watch the last game in 1975 against the Reds. Nor the last game against the Mets. 

Blessedly, in 2004, the Red Sox swept the Cards in four. In 2007, they swept the Rockies. In 2013, it took them six games to dispatch the Cards, and in 2018, they beat the Dodgers in five. So I haven't had to endure a seven game Red Sox World Series since 1986. Lucky me.

Last Saturday night, I decided to stop being a big baby and, halfway through the game, I turned it on. This was the last of baseball for the season. Winter is long and dark, with no baseball to relieve the long and dark. I had to watch.

The game was a nail biter, and by the 8th inning, I had no more nails to bite. 

When it got to the top of the 9th inning with the Jays hanging on by their fingernails, with a one run lead, my heart was racing. Not quite as nerve wracking as watching election results roll in, but heart-racingly nerve wracking.

Extra innings. Boo! I HATE extra innings.

(Amazing to me that I get so swept up in watching a bunch of well-paid men play a kids' game that in the grand scheme of things matters not...)

Well, someone had to win, and someone had to lose, and sadly - to me anyway - the Jays lost. 

So the really big spenders won, and the not quite so spendy big spenders came up short. But, hey, when the Red Sox were winning World Series, they were pretty big spenders. Mostly you do get what you pay for. (Unless you're the Mets, who had the highest MLB payroll - and the highest paid player in baseball - and fell flat.)

Money talk aside, there are so many reasons why baseball is such a great sport. 

There's the history. I've only been to the Baseball Hall of Fame twice, but I'd like to see it once more - one of the few things on my bucket list. The stories. The legends. The greatness. The rivalries. The sordid past. (No Black players until 1946????) The heartbreaking losses. (Red Sox, too ofen to count.) The redemptions. (Red Sox beating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS after they were down 0-3.) The eccentrics. The a-holes. The heroes. The bums. I love it all. 

There's the long season, with all its intricate arcs and subarcs. 

There's the crazy, convoluted rules. Sure, all sports have them. But the infield fly rule? I rest my case!

There's the pace of the game. Sure, like a lot of folks, I was happy to see the pitch clock introduced, as games could really drag on. But there's a wonderful rhythm to watching baseball that's lacking in the other Big Four sports.

Let's face it, most team sports are running or skating up and down a field, court, or rink, trying to get the ball (or puck) across their opponent's goal (or into the basket). Not much of a plot. 

Baseball, well, it's different. For one thing, players aren't all running (or skating) back and forth all together. For another thing, well, there are a lot of other things...

I'm sure there's great writing about other sports. But writing about baseball is in a whole other league. Can anything beat Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times (which I gave my father for Christmas in 1966)? Or John Updike's New Yorker paean to Ted Williams last plate appearance, when he hit a homer? (Earlier that season, in July 1960, sitting in the bleachers with my father, I saw Ted William hit a homerun. My first game at Fenway.) Bang the Drum Slowly, Field of Dreams, The Boys of Summer, The Natural, Ball Four, Moneyball. And one of my all time favorites: Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Steward O'Nan. (Good and great writers write about baseball.)

Other sports? Not so much.

Ditto for movies. Bull Durham. Say no more. 

And then there's this:

Mike Trout is a future Hall of Famer. In September, he hit his 400th home run. A moonshot: 485 feet!

Like so much else in our society, MLB home run balls have become a thing to fight over.

Last season, Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball, which made him the first ever member of the 50/50 club, sparked multiple lawsuits over ownership between fans who had fought for it in the stands before it ended up selling for a record $4.392 million. This season, even an otherwise forgettable home run ball from a random Phillies-Marlins game sparked a heated exchange that resulted in an adult taking it from a child. So when Mike Trout hit his 400th career home run on Saturday night, the latest milestone in what is already a hall-of-fame career, it could have gotten ugly once the valuable ball reached the Coors Field stands.

Instead, it landed in the hands of a man who wanted a memory more than a payday. (Source: NY Times)

The fan who caught the ball, a fellow named Alberto, was watching the game with his wife and kids. Alberto had his glove with him, but he nabbed the Trout homer barehanded. Although he could have held Trout, the Angels, or the Hall of Fame  up for some pretty big bucks for that ball (even if it wasn't going for Shohei money), Alberto was fine with giving the ball back to Trout. After the game, Alberto met Trout in the dugout, gave him the ball, and in return was given a couple of autographed bats and balls. 

Getting the autographed stuff was nice, but Alberto had one little ask in mind:

“You mind if we can, like, (have a catch) on the field?” he asked.

Trout readily obliged and the two men then tossed a ball back and forth near the third base line.

I was never an athlete. Just a fan. But in the spring, when it started to get a little light out in the evenings, my father and I would sometimes go out in the backyard, sink a bit into the grass still squishy from snow melt, and play catch.

Baseball. There is just nothing like it. 

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Image Source for ball and bat: Psychological Science

Image Source for Alberto and Mike Trout: Instagram