The Way I Like to Watch Baseball

Although I take an interest in how various major league baseball teams are doing in the standings, while at the same time usually rooting for one team over another while watching a particular game, winning or losing is not why I enjoy watching baseball...and by that I mean "watching baseball on television".  No, it doesn't matter whether the score is close or not, or how late or early it is...covering an inning in baseball is like a mini-game in itself.  Or should I say "half-inning".

Each half-inning is a little, complete story in itself...furthermore, each at-bat within each half-inning is its own story, too.  It's all about base positions, the ball-strike count, and how each individual hitter strategizes to handle the strategies of the pitcher.  This fascinates me, and also enables me to tune in and out of baseball games with ease, half-inning by half-inning.  Add to that the familiarity I am gradually attaining about the players on the teams I follow and baseball doesn't have to be the boring spectator sport that I've heard so many describe it to be.  Plus, there are little aspects to it here and there that give it a flavor peculiar to the sport.  For example, in a Miami Marlins home game yesterday one of the batters hit a long home run that landed in a pool.  One of the fans then promptly dove into it to retrieve the ball (with his cellphone hand held high out of the water).  Or when the bat girl in left field foul territory promptly scooted over and deftly fielded a ground ball...that had just been ruled fair.  Or the tale end of last night's Yankee-Rays game when New York manager Joe Girardi, seeing his team hopelessly behind 14-1 to Tampa Bay with one more inning to pitch, decided to send utility infielder Dean Anna  in to pitch it instead of using up someone from his pitching staff.  Anna gave up a couple of runs, and his pitches all looked like they were being thrown in slow motion...but he got a lot of them over the plate in the strike zone.  The cameras panned the Tampa Bay dugout, showing the grinning and laughing pitchers (including their ace David Price) watching this display.  I liked that stand-in pitcher if for no other reason that he took almost no time between pitches...how refreshing!

I'm looking forward to seeing more "diamond duels" this spring and summer, half-inning by half-inning...