Play Ball(s)!

For as long as baseball has been an organized sport, one recurring debate has raged in the sporting world:

Is baseball is a boring sport?

On one side of the debate are the purists. Those are the people who know the difference between a curveball and a slider. They know what a double switch is. And they think that the people who decry baseball as "boring" are too simple-minded to form an educated opinion on the subject.

On the other side of the debate are the people who insist that sports have a certain amount of action. They like their sports to be, well, sporting. They don't respect any sport that would accept into its loving embrace someone as out-of-shape as John Kruk. And they don't like the fact that the strike zone is a transient, amorphous rectangle suspended in space, subject to the non-mathematic whims of fallible human eyes.

We at SFZ have never formally entered the debate. But a recent carpool conversation -- which led to a bet between Mumbles and me -- clearly shows which side we would take if pressed:

Madd Dogg: So I was watching the game last night. At first, I was wondering why all of the players scratch at their balls so much. And then I realized that it was because they are all wearing cups and they are constantly adjusting them.
Fidget: I don't think they all wear cups; I think only the catcher does.
Madd Dogg: Really?
Mumbles: No, dude, they all wear cups.
Fidget: I don't think so. Do you know how hard it would be to run with a cup?
Mumbles: Dude, I used to play lacrosse, and we all wore cups, and we ran around the whole time.
Sparky: I don't know, Mumbles. What about the outfielders?
Mumbles: Yeah, I don' t know if the outfielders wear cups. But the infield and the pitcher definitely do. Dude, do you know how bad it would hurt to get hit in the crotch with a baseball?

And so on . . .

So what does the above conversation say about the members of SFZ? Are we perverted? Do we have an obsession with genital protective gear? Do we have too much time on our hands?

All of those questions are, themselves, subject to debate. But I, for one, think that our conversation sends a pretty clear message about whether we think that baseball is boring. Let me put it this way -- after a hard-fought pitcher's duel in the NLCS, the most interesting thing that we could find to discuss was why the players scratch their nuts with such frightening frequency.

So if you ask us, "Do you think that baseball is a boring sport?", our answer will be a resounding "You bet your ass, we do. Except maybe during the playoffs."

[Photo by SquadLeader]