I remember when I gave up my first homerun. I was 14 years old at the time, and my dad was coaching the team. The kid that hit the bomb was the white version of Greg Oden, and no one will convince me he was also 14. I could have sworn I saw him drive off after the game. Anyway, it seemed like he took two hours to round the bases. When he finally crossed the plate, my dad came out to the mound and looked towards left field.
"That thing should have had a stewardess on it," he said. "If the ball smashed our windshield, you're paying for it."
I tried to intentionally hit the next kid in the back on the next pitch, but I was so mad that I missed. The ball sailed behind him to the backstop. I followed that up with a fastball over his head. The umpire threw me out of the game after that.
Baseball is, in my opinion, the hardest sport to play. Basketball players are the most athletic, football players are the toughest, but baseball players are the most skilled. Anyone who has ever played the game knows just how mental the sport can be. If you make a throwing error and follow that up with another, your mind can start to play tricks on you. At one point, you could throw a laser beam from third base to first without even thinking. But when you psyche yourself out, you realize just how precise the throw needs to be.
Ask former Major League All-Star Chuck Knoblauch. He was once considered one of the best fielders in baseball and even won a Gold Glove at second base. As a New York Yankee, however, he began having trouble making the short throw from second to first, often tossing the ball 20 or 30 feet over the head of teammate Tino Martinez. One time, he chucked the ball into the stands on a routine grounder, and it hit sportscaster Keith Olbermann's mother in the face.
Before I continue, take a moment to laugh. That last part is too good not to.
Knoblauch never recovered and retired in 2003. As Olbermann used to say on SportsCenter, "... and aloha means goodbye."
Throwing a baseball is one thing. Hitting a baseball is a whole different ballgame. It's the hardest thing to do in sports. Try standing in the batter's box while a pitcher hurls a 90-mile-per-hour tiny speck of a ball towards you, and see if you can make contact with it.
I always make the same point when I have this argument with my friends: you can take just about anyone off the street and teach them to play basketball or football. They might not be great, but you can certainly get them to a level where they can blend in during a pick up game. If you can't make a lay up or catch a pass, then you should consider a career in ballet or basket weaving. Teaching someone to play baseball, on the other hand, is not so easy. Either you can hit, or you can't. Either you have a good arm, or you don't. I don't know how you can teach someone these skills.
So, if you are one of those people who think baseball is boring, I probably can't change your mind. However, you should at least appreciate the skill it takes to play baseball.
