AS AMERICAN AS SHEHERD'S PIE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-28-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Raining down from the sky, all across the land, baseballs as big as hailstones mark the beginning of the long and arduous unfolding of a competitive season unlike any other. How embarrassing that America's Pastime is British. The story that Abner Doubleday invented baseball is itself an invention, since it had been played in various forms since the 1700s. In 1845 The Knickerbocker Club of New York published a set of rules that made the British game of "rounders" uniquely American. It may not be perfect, but the game of baseball is as close to dramatic purity as sports is likely to get.

     That doesn't stop the Commissioner of Baseball from tweaking the regulations to try to improve the television ratings and ballpark attendance, while causing conservatives to argue with progressives about whether or not the "designated hitter" should be universal. Starting this year it is, so conservatives and progressives can go back to arguing about much less important stuff. Now, when it's the pitcher's turn to hit, someone else gets to strike out in his place, and the pitcher gets to say, "I could have done THAT, and I would have done it a lot faster."

     Also new this year is an electronic communications system between pitcher and catcher, so they can trade signals back and forth to decide what pitches to throw. It's to prevent runners on second base from seeing the catcher's sign and tipping the upcoming pitch to the hitter. The kinks aren't all worked out yet, so instead the runner on second hears the pitcher say, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" And the catcher says, "SLIDER, LOW AND AWAY." And the runner on second says, "SLIDER, LOW AND AWAY." And the hitter says "I HEARD." And strikes out anyway.

     Next year we'll say goodbye to the "shift," may it rest in peace. That's a defensive alignment that came into fashion when math geeks started becoming assistant coaches. They ran the numbers, analyzed the data, populated the spreadsheets, and discovered that the hitter usually hits the ball right over there, and they stick three fielders there. The hitter, spooked by all the fielders, tries to bunt to the place where the fielders used to be, and strikes out. Next year the fielders will have to be where they usually are, so the hitters can go back to striking out for other reasons.

     But baseball is still good company, especially on the radio. I like John Sterling, he's the good-humored play-by-play guy on the radio. We see eye-to-eye about a lot of things, and in two sentences I've used up my hyphen quota for the day. I agree with his common complaint that there are an awful lot of unnecessary and annoying sound effects played at the Stadium. Sometimes they play "DAY-O... DAY-O..." the "Banana Boat Song," made popular by Harry Belafonte, over the PA, I don't really know why. Perhaps someone made a study of what gets people riled up at a ballpark, and bananas came up bigger than anyone expected. Next time I'm at the stadium I'm going to slip the word "banana" casually into the conversation and see if I can stir up the fan base. Also, and I'm not sure if this is new or if I'm just more irritated by it than I ever used to be, but they play what sounds like a loud civil defense alarm every time a Yankee pitcher reaches a two-strike count. In and of itself it's already annoying, but what if we come under a nuclear attack just when a Yankee pitcher reaches a two-strike count, and everyone at the stadium fails to realize it because they're already sounding that stupid alarm?

     What I don't like about John Sterling is that he sometimes doesn't understand the main difference between television and radio. On radio, the audience can't see the game, so as an announcer you have to describe it to us: "And that's ball four, so the Yankees have a lead-off walk. Except the umpire called it a strike." Since we can't see the game, we won't know if you wait an extra second for the umpire to actually make his call before you make yours. Recently in extra innings the home team batter came up in extra innings with two men on and launched a towering shot that would have won the game: "IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR, IT IS... GONE!" It turned up a few moments later of course, right in the outfielder's glove. It wasn't quite high enough, and wasn't quite far enough, and I had spilled my coffee all over the front seat of my car for nothing. My coffee was... GONE!