the bat and ball

i: the introduction

sometimes i think about scotland. especially the sports. ever heard of the highland games? it's like the olympics, but every sport (unless you only want to do the hill run like some kind of regular guy) is about performing the coolest action on the heaviest object while wearing a kilt. if you do this, you win. that's the genre that stayed popular in its homeland. but the one that left is where this story begins.

the other (arguably much more funny) one is rock yelling. you have some form of rock and some form of target, and you really try to get the rock to go at the target, and because the rock does not obey your desires by virtue of being a mindless object, you yell (internally or externally) in a vain attempt to get it to do so. you have now been given a cursory instruction in the ways of golf and curling. but their cousin interests us more today. its name is rounders. say hi.

in the games that share their origins in rounders, we see an important distinction: you, the rock yeller, are now required to move yourself around some kind of track (hi hill running) in avoidance and constant fear of the rock which you have bludgeoned as far away from yourself as possible (the target presumably having moved to the point at infinity) with a big stick. and the rock, well, he's got the other team in his pocket to return him to you as quickly as possible, at which point you will be removed from existence.

ii: why the grass is greener on my side

but you probably knew all that, having clicked on such a clearly polarized article as this. you love baseball, or are about to. after all, it shaped the american vernacular and plays far more games every season than the vast majority of sports leagues around the globe. and so we happily leave our cricket-loving friends who clicked on the other article (last chance) where the sports diverge quite some time before the civil war.

our hero of blessed memory, abner doubleday, baseball was always just kinda there, as seen by the original knickerbocker rules often credited as an origin of baseball (the old text can be found at baseball almanac):

the important thing is that the original text already assumes you know how baseball works (not to mention all the playing card terminology present in the original). and assumed reader knowledge is code for something that everybody knew at the time. most of the modern game existed, though notable elements which are absent include gloves, called pitches, and general lack of sportsmanship.

this general way of things continued as baseball established itself as just being a thing to do (or a "pastime") from sea to kansas c(ity). after a hilarious season where it was collectively realized that essentially allowing someone to own two teams at once was a terrible idea, the world series was established and baseball essentially solidified in a near-modern form. all that was left was to get rid of the usual 20th century problems, followed by drugs (and there were a lot of drugs, in various and sundry kinds). so rather than relate the story of that, i will now actually develop your interest in baseball with legendary tales of yore (if you weren't already interested).

iii: the greatest to ever do it

george herman "babe" ruth was so cool future archaeologists might think he never really existed. he's the guy all the kids looked up to in the movies. the guy with all the nicknames about how cool he is. that is the case for a few reasons, which i will outline before telling you of his most legendary moment.

the last of the two-way players

in baseball, being able to hit and being able to pitch are two skills you can only have one of anymore, with what now seems like one exception a century. for the 1900s, that was babe ruth. he did quit being a pitcher eventually, but until the days of shohei ohtani, he was the only real example of such a two-way player most people could think of. and especially given ruth's popularity in japan, he may have caused ohtani to realize this ability in the first place. either way, this alone makes him very cool.

the curse and murderer's row

babe ruth is mostly known for his time with the yankees, but he was actually traded there by the boston red sox, who then suffered one of the greatest curses in baseball because of it. it would have been the greatest ever, but the gap between the chicago cubs' world series wins (caused by a goat of all things) entirely surrounds the gap between boston's wins. regardless, ruth went on to be a member of the fearsome "murderer's row", which for the unfamiliar also makes him a legend. for these and his below exploits he is probably to this day the default baseball player.

the home run king

ruth was also essentially the home run champion of the beginning of modern baseball. his 714 career home runs stood as the most for decades beyond his retirement. this probably helped to cement his legacy among fans, especially because his record and hank aaron's after him were accomplished before the whole steroids thing. but now for his most legendary tale...

the legend of the called shot

on october 1, 1932, during an away game of the world series against the pre-curse cubs of all things, babe ruth humiliated the cubs to the greatest extent allowed by the unwritten rules of baseball. during his fifth inning at-bat, he had had enough of being heckled by the crowd and the opposing team. before taking strike two, he began pointing to center field between pitches. and when the pitcher gave him a curveball, he hit it to that place in center field for a home run. that's all i'll say about the story, but if you want a cooler, more legendary version, ask literally anyone (including me outside the context of this article) for the story of the called shot. and if all that doesn't convince you at least of babe ruth's legendary status, nothing will. except maybe watching the sandlot.

iv: bitter rivals

i think i'm onto something at this point when i say i am about to describe to you the two flavors of rivalry, at least in sports like this. the first kind is the one that's existed since time immemorial (at least for an american definition of time immemorial) and is between ancient teams with legacies. the second one is a bit younger but never stops being fiery. these are based off the following archetypes:

the old men rivalry: new york yankees/boston red sox

thanks to murderer's row and the yankees' 1998-2000 threepeat among many, many other things, the yankees have by far the most championship titles of any major league baseball team. and yet that does absolutely nothing to stop them, because the red sox are destined to be their eternal rivals like they're bound by whatever the opposite of the red cord of fate is. obvious championship disparity due to the curse of the bambino aside, this rivalry hogs national television slots for a living. now unlike the second rivalry archetype, i haven't been to any edition in person, but it never seems to have the fire afforded by the other rivalry.

the fiery rivalry: st louis cardinals/chicago cubs

these teams are just about as old, but ever since they were equally vying to be king of the midwest in the 1900s, the rivalry has never died down. maybe it also helps these rivalries for one team to win lots of championships while the other one is cursed, because the cardinals have the second most championships and the cubs famously went 108 years between their second and third. regardless, these games are almost guaranteed sellouts and there will be booing of the other team. if for some undiscernible reason you want more vitriol in your life, get yourself some tickets.

v: the flow of baseball

baseball is also different from most other sports in that it is untimed and therefore free to both last as long as it pleases and allow ridiculous comebacks that would be unheard of anywhere else. my prime examples of these traits are the 1981 minor league game that lasted 32 innings before the umpires were forced to close the game at a later date and game six of the 2011 world series, where the rangers had a two-run lead over the cardinals with two outs and two strikes in both the ninth and tenth innings and still managed to choke away the game. you can't have that in other sports without time pressure, and time pressure makes people suck at sports. thus i argue that you should give baseball a chance if you haven't already.

vi: alright i'm sold. but what are all these numbers?

first of all: happy for you. second: if any of the following descriptions decrease your total enjoyment of the sport, immediately close this article and go enjoy baseball instead. i will attempt to arrange this section by increasing nerdiness to facilitate this process.

level one: knowledge of what a sport is required beyond this point

teams are shown next to the amount of points they have. their names are usually reduced to strings of three characters each. whichever team has a bigger number when everybody leaves won the game. unlike cricket, the actual score of the game is always displayed, causing much less confusion.

level two: desire to know what is happening when watching baseball required beyond this point

as you can hopefully see from my attempt to translate a somewhat standard baseball scorebug into an html table, much more info is constantly displayed than just the score. to the right of the score you will see the amount of the current game which has been played. it indicates that it is the top (away) half of the first inning. one baseball game contains the top and bottom halves of nine numbered innings, except when it doesn't. the top right box (if i could style it better) shows the bases. these will be filled in when occupied by an offensive player. underneath this is the "count" of the current plate appearance in the format balls-strikes. the two circles next to it show how many outs have been recorded in this half of this inning.

the bottom information is not always guaranteed, but usually consists of the pitcher identified by last name, how many pitches that pitcher has thrown, and the new pitch clock in one row and batting information in the bottom row. this is more subject to change aside from last name. since the game just started, the batter's batting average (explained later) is displayed, sometimes disambiguated between regular season and postseason. if the batter has previously appeared in this game, batting record is displayed instead, in the format hits-at bats. since this does not include walks for archaic reasons, those are written next to this record.

you may have noticed that baseball has far more periods than the more popular two or four of other sports, and that makes final score displays rather long. the general idea, however, is the same, except that each team's hits and errors are traditionally displayed alongside their scores. in very recent years, this has expanded to sometimes include runners left on base. for the most part, however, you should be able to comfortably watch a game if you can understand the boxes from this section.

ps: if you know which game this final score corresponds to and are a supporter of the losing team, i am personally sorry.

final level: tolerance for math and love of baseball required beyond this point

alright we're done looking at things in boxes. you're here for the numbers. so, up to the point of sabermetrics, let's look at the numbers people generally see as good indications of overall performance and then i'll leave you to the guidance of people who are somehow even nerdier.

offensive stats

batting average

is calculated from "hits" (reaching any base by virtue of you hitting the ball into play and the fielder not making a mistake) divided by "at bats" (a subset of plate appearances based on the preferences of people from long ago). generally about the simplest to understand as the answer to the question "how often is something people cheer for actually going to happen?", but judged by many to be inferior to

ops

(on base plus slugging), which is actually derived from different stats. it is the sum of

on base percentage

which is batting average's less picky sibling. it is simply the percentage of plate appearances where you make it to at least first base. to get ops, you add this to

slugging percentage

which is the amount of bases you reach through your own hits divided by at bats.

back to ops and beyond

it's generally the most comprehensive single number most people will use to evaluate hitting. now like any fan of sayings mark twain might have said, i know statistics are one of the three kinds of lies, but sometimes we just have to live with that. anyway, if you want to improve on that formula you have to stare down the fact that there is no regulation size or shape of a baseball field, and i am certainly not doing that for you. good luck though.

defensive stats (really just pitchers)

era

(earned run average) is the amount of "earned" runs (scored without fault attributable to another fielder) a pitcher has given up every nine innings (or more accurately 27 outs). it is widely brought up as the single encapsulating pitching number both in person and on telecasts. this being baseball, however, other numbers that think they are better at doing the same job must exist.

fip

(fielding independent pitching) is meant to be on the same scale by use of an adjusting constant, but only takes into account the "four true outcomes" (home runs, walks, hit by pitch, and strikeouts) so as to not allow any actions of people who are not the pitcher to affect the calculation. finally there's the fun name of

whip

which stands for walks and hits per inning pitched (self-explanatory). together with era or fip, this provides a fairly good overall estimate of a pitcher's ability. just like hitting though, results will vary widely no matter what.

bonus round: sabermetrics

like i said, go find someone nerdier for further education. i personally recommend plus stats, but if you continue down this road you will one day receive a painful reminder that numbers still cannot predict the future when your new favorite player somehow shatters his femur sliding into first base. seriously, if you want any sport to be fun, watch it with a moderate understanding. once you get in too deep it becomes a chore. this may or may not be coming from personal experience. you'll probably be fine though.

conclusion

now i want to be perfectly clear, i enjoy both baseball and cricket. any sense of divisiveness in this pair of articles is a part of the bit. i really wrote these as an exercise in being funny and to increase your enjoyment of sports as a whole. if i accomplished that, good. otherwise, consider the other article. if you also didn't enjoy that or sports just isn't your thing or both, just wait around. i'll probably write about something else eventually.

eh. this isn't going anywhere anymore. the end (except for, you know, all the baseball that happens in the future).