Re: Explain Baseball
It's hard for me to explain, having been born into a baseball crazy family. As Andy and others mentioned, there are the little battles that are missed by the casual observer that play huge roles in the outcomes of each play, inning, game. The pace of the game lends itself to a lot of second guessing (or pre-guessing?) which allows the fans to have more than a rooting interest in the action. The action itself, which comes in spurts interspaced with sometimes long lulls, is sometimes unexpected and sometimes a crescendo after a build up of tension, which makes it much more exciting and precious than the constant hammering of action you find in american football and basketball.
for those like me, though, it just is. Terrance Mann's (the character in field of dreams) speech at the end of the movie sums it up for me and people who grew up with the game:
"Ray, people will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. "Of course, we won't mind if you have a look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person." They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.
"And they'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.
"People will come, Ray.
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come."
|