best baseball game
EW YORK -- The World Series is a reminder that October is when baseball is the best game of all.
Not the industry of baseball, as in the lingering labor dispute that canceled the World Series two years ago. Not the high finance of baseball, as in the multi-million dollar contracts for some ballplayers who aren't worth the price of a hot dog or a bag of peanuts. Not the arrogance of baseball, as in the behavior of some players and owners.
Simply the game of baseball.
Three strikes. Four balls. Ninety feet between bases. Sixty feet, 6 inches to the pitcher's mound. Three outs. Nine innings, if not a few more innings every so often.
Most importantly, no clock.
Without the clock that confines football, basketball and hockey games to so many minutes, a baseball game never expires until the final out. No matter what the score, baseball always provides hope, as it does for both the Yankees and the Braves in the 92nd World Series.
Some people think baseball is dull, and during the long season it often is. But it's not dull in October, not in the World Series.
It's dull sometimes in April or May or June or July or August or even in September in a game between two teams with no chance of qualifying for the playoffs. The interminable staredown between a pitcher and batter. The wait for the arrival of a relief pitcher. The hitter's constant stepping out of the batter's box. The rival managers' chess moves. The pokey pace between innings.
But those same situations that sometimes make it dull during the season always make it better in October.
It's considered a team game, but the continual confrontation between the pitcher and the batter make it an individual game within a team game. That continual one-on-one doesn't exist in football, basketball and hockey.
Its playing surface is also much larger than other sports. The larger the surface, the more adventures for the ball.
The game is so good, it survives the stupidity of its schism over the designated hitter, especially in the World Series.
Because the American League uses the DH and the National League doesn't, the DH will be used at Yankee Stadium but not at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Only baseball could get away with having two different games within one game.
Yes, baseball games take longer than it seems they should. During the season that can be a bore. But in a close game in October, the hours only heighten the tension in the theater because there's no clock ticking off the minutes and the seconds.
It's not like that in other sports.
In football, is there anything duller than a Super Bowl quarterback taking the snap and kneeling to run out the clock in the final minutes? In basketball, is there anything duller than a losing team fouling simply to prolong the agony? In hockey, is there anything duller than a winning team icing the puck to protect a lead?
In baseball, no clock means no kneeling, no fouls, no icing. No clock means a team always has a chance to win.
Sometimes that chance is remote, as the Cardinals realized in their 15-0 and 14-0 losses to the Braves in the NLCS but the chance was still there until the Braves got 27 outs.
That chance is sometimes all a team needs.
In the Yankees' hallowed history of a record 211 post-season games (186 in the World Series, 20 in LCS and 10 in Division Series), they had never overcome a deficit as high as 4-0, but two weeks ago Saturday night in Texas they did.
Time didn't run out. It never does.
In the 1929 World Series, the Chicago Cubs had an 8-0 lead in the fourth game, but Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics erupted for 10 runs in the seventh inning. Home run. Single. Single. Single. Single. Popup. Single. Home run. Walk. Single. Single. Hit by pitch. Double. Strikeout. Strikeout. Final score, 10-8. The next day, the A's closed out the Cubs, 3-2.
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