My Summer of Baseball

A Few Things I Learned

With the Brewers' season ending on Sunday, my summer of baseball is over too. Here's a look back at a few things I learned in 188 days of 2008 baseball...

- There is nothing like Opening Day.

- Baseball is the ultimate connector. This summer I had more (and more interesting) conversations, with more people I barely knew, than ever before.

- A little indifference is an OK thing if it helps you keep your eye on the ball.

- Every team needs some old guys. They know the ropes; they calm the team; they save the day. Way to go Kendall, Kapler, Counsel.

- There really is such a thing as a game-changer. One amazing play can change the mood and the mojo of an entire series.

- Being there is great, but sometimes it's just as nice to have Jim Powell bring the game into your living room. You learn so much more.

- Most games are fun, and a game with family or friends is even better. 

- After 100+ games, I still think the intentional walk is the cowardly way out. And as often as not, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

- No one is more important than the pitcher. Except maybe the home plate ump.

- There are few things more thrilling than when Uecker shouts, "How about that one, folks?"

- A critical injury can mean everything to a team. The entire 2008 season shifted when Yovani took that bad leap. The same might be said about Braun's bad swing.

- Milwaukee is a place where former players like Geoff Jenkins are welcomed back with applause, and great pitching - like Chris Young's near no-hitter on September 6 - is honored with an ovation. Makes me proud to be a fan here.

- Most everybody plays better on their bobble-head day.

- Nobody has more stamina or grit than Jason Kendall.

- The All Star game is a mojo killer. Ask JJ Hardy last year or ask Corey Hart, Ben Sheets and Ryan Braun this year. Next year, I'm not voting for Brewers.

- A great trade makes a great difference. And it's not just about talent, it's about fit, too. CC brought both.

- Nobody wants to sit by a know-it-all, a loud drunk or a chatterbox. The best games have both roars and silences.

- It might not be rule one, but it's up there: Don't leave men stranded on base. It loses too many games and ticks off too many fans.

- It may feel good, but booing never seems to make anybody play better.

- Over six months, your views on players change. It's not an excuse to be fickle, but it's a fact of baseball that you may love Suppan in August and dread him in September.

- Leaving in the 7th or 8th is lame...especially when we're losing. It's the rats that desert the ship when it's sinking.

- Mood matters. The difference between the Yost and Sveum clubs was palpable in the players' quotes, the dugout attitude and the on-field play.

- No matter how many innings a game goes, that last out is still shockingly disappointing or joyful.

- On a great day, Miller Park can be so loud that you literally can't hear yourself think. And a grand slam will make you scream yourself silly.

- Writing 160+ posts was a challenge and a pleasure. I'm grateful to everyone who read...and really appreciate the notes and comments back.

- 83 games proved one thing above all: Even more important than whether they win, it's who you're with that makes the game great. Thanks, Pete.

- There's only one October. I'm so glad I got to see it this year. I'm so glad it comes along every year. April 2009 can't come soon enough. After all: There's nothing like Opening Day.

It's Not About the Blog

Over the past month or so, I haven't posted as much or as often as I once did. And I feel bad about that.

True, I've had a lot going on. And when I skipped it was usually because I opted for a few more minutes of desperately needed sleep.

Still, I feel bad that the last third of My Summer of Baseball appears somehow less heartfelt than the first third.

And it's such a wrong impression. In fact, baseball has become such a fundamental part of life now that it just doesn't always occur to me to write about it. I'm living it.

I spent a lot of the summer enjoying baseball as part of the grand blogging experiment. I loved the games, but I was also always putting everything through the blog filter:
- What was I seeing that I could use?
- How could I link baseball to what I really wanted to talk about that day?
- What was the perfect word to describe X, Y or Z?

And that was very fun, both as a writer and as a fan. But by September, I had turned a corner. I couldn't wax philosophical about the losses or think of clever quips about the wins. I was too busy feeling it all, deep down in my gut.

The fact is, these days when I get to a game, there's no computer at home, there's no Internet waiting.

There's just the ball, and the bat, and the glove. The roar and sigh of the crowd. And so many hopes, kept alive for another joyful week.

And the Replay is Upon Us

Last night in the Yankees-Rays game, instant replay was used for the first time to evaluate a potential home run by A-Rod.

The process apparently went off without a hitch, and as the Rays catcher said, "Sometimes it takes longer for the manager to get kicked out of the game."

I guess it's inevitable, and probably good news. But it still seems a bit of a shame.

I've mentioned before that I think there's something great about the fact that baseball can be won or lost on a human call. It keeps you guessing, and keeps things interesting.

Plus, I'm not one who likes the raw data over the emotional moment. I like that time and hopes can color what we remember, make it more vivid and more exciting.

Yesterday Pete and I were interviewed about having been to so many games - for a possible bit on the sports news sometime soon.

It was fun and very flattering. But I keep thinking - I know how I feel about this fun summer, and all I've learned, and all I've enjoyed.

What if my perception of it isn't right, though? What if on tape we sound flakey or ignorant or something?

I'm not sure I want the video evidence in some archive forever. I want to keep this summer and our experience of it in my mind, evolving it, making it even more a part of me ...even if it's less a part of what was really "real."

So, we'll see. Maybe the tape will show me just what I hope. It did for A-Rod -- the call went in his favor and lifted him to number 12 on the list of most career homers.

I guess that's the sweet spot we all hope for -- when perception and reality combine for a home run we can remember forever.

The Trouble with Blogs

I'm at a family reunion this weekend, so tracked the game on my blackberry yesterday. It's great to have another win and know this series is secure. And with Sheets on the mound today, hopefully it's even a sweep. It was also fun to be among Phillies fans since they took down the Cards.

But best of all last night was the conversation. Some families get together and sing show tunes. Mine does debate. From society to socialism to sports, it's all fair game.

Last night one fun skirmish was about the Internet and self-publishing. The issue is: If everyone can publish opinions as fact, then 1) how can you trust anything, and 2) how can there be any accountability.

This is especially true for politics, science and other major news. But I suppose also for minor league topics like sports.

Sure, we're all writing what we believe, but the voice may be larger, louder or even sometimes more vitriolic. Now that we can publish anonymously, people don't think twice about aspersions they would never say face-to-face.

Plus, since so much news travels today in links forwarded from friend to friend, maybe more and more people are hearing only about what "matters" in their circle...and ignoring the rest of the world.

Not that this is new. Someone pointed out that for most of human history, what you knew depended on who you met. Think nomadic groups at trading posts, swapping stories about what's dangerous down the road. The world narrows to just what your connections pass along.

We've lately had a heyday of worldwide media and exploding access to information. But in the torrent, people seem to be instinctively reverting back to the Friends News Network.

Maybe it's dangerous that we're using the global power of the Internet to shrink the world and shutter our views.

Maybe it's irresponsible, too, including me with my adamant but somewhat uninformed opinions jotted down in 10-minute bursts.

But then again, maybe 500 years ago, when self-published political pamphlets were helping change the world, people sat around at family reunions and had this exact same debate.

Or, maybe they simply did the only thing they could do back then: Sit around waiting for baseball to be invented, so they'd have something to really debate about.

I'm Back

On Friday, I boarded an airplane, soared into the sky and ended up in an alternate universe -- one where water spins the wrong way down the drain and the Brewers can't win.

I missed five games and the Crew lost four of them - their worst home losing-streak this season. How devastating. I figured on the opposite record, at worst.

But it turns out you can't always count on what you think you know. And, along those lines, it turns out water doesn't spin down the drain the opposite way in the Southern Hemisphere.

It's a myth. The potential is there to make it happen - it's called the Coriolis force - but its impact just isn't that strong on such a small amount of water. Hurricane, yes. Sink full of water, no.

So there you go. It's all about order of magnitude. The potential was there for the Brewers to make it happen, but their impact just wasn't strong enough.

Maybe the analogy isn't quite apt, but whatever direction you spin it, it adds up to the same thing: hopes and expectations washing relentlessly down the drain.

Missing Milwaukee

So, you might be wondering why I didn't post anything after last night's win.

It was a great, exciting game. And, after a lot of complaints from me throughout this year about lost late-game opportunities, I was happy to eat my words.

But here's the thing that bummed me out: I'm leaving.

I'm going to miss the next 5 games by about 8,000 miles.

So tonight when Milwaukee welcomes home its stars, I'll miss it.

Sunday when we sweep the Astros, I'll miss it.

And Tuesday when we clobber the Cubs, yep, I'll miss that too.

Of course, I'll try to catch some of the games through the magic of Tivo and Slingbox. And, Pete has agreed to keep me posted and maybe even write a little something on the blog.

Still, after making it to 47 games these past few months, missing 5 in a row now hurts.

When I stop and think about it, though, I have to admit it's a little bit of a hurts-so-good kind of thing.

I started this summer and this blog fearing that by game 40, I'd have had enough baseball for a lifetime.

Instead, here I am agonizing over a mid-summer trip most people would love.

It feels kind of good, actually...to adore a team and a sport so much.

So, there: It's settled.

I may be leaving. And I may be missing baseball. But I wouldn't miss this missing feeling for the world.

Keep the Competition Coming

The arrival first of CC and now of Ray Durham has me thinking about competition.

One of the things I liked seeing in the game last night -- beyond the Crew snuffing out the Cards, of course -- was Sheets and CC goofing off in the dugout. At one point the camera focused on them and they seemed to be cracking each other up.

But I can't help wondering about how different players feel as they get new competition on their own team. At least, it seems to have an impact at the plate.

After a 0-35 hitting slump by Brewers starting pitchers, CC came along, pounded some hits, and the other pitchers suddenly got hot.

We're now on a six-game hitting streak by starting pitchers. And it's reasonable to think it might continue since Suppan is up tonight, bringing his 59 career hits about a third of which are RBIs.

Weeks is another example. Going into last night's game, he'd had just eight home runs.

So when Ray Durham arrived yesterday -- supposedly just to bolster the team, but we have to wonder if it's to better fill the 2B spot -- was that the incentive Rickie needed to power his 431-foot three-run homer?

Hard to tell. Baseball is full of coincidences that masquerade as stats.

Maybe teammate-to-teammate competition has nothing to do with it. But if it plays any part in the fact that we're coming off the All Star break with a four-game winning streak...it sure works for me.

I Say: Go With Your Gut

I'm a fan of Levitt and Dubner - the Freakonomics guys. This week Dubner wrote an interesting post on their blog about decision-making and how it's influenced by experience vs. information.

As in...do you decide what to do based on what you have actually experienced? Or, do you choose based on information about what could happen?

Mostly it's situational, of course...depending on whether you have personal experience to draw from (how to drive a car) or whether you need to go out and get information (how to buy a car).

Dubner links to a psychology paper on this topic...which says that when people make decisions based on experience, they give less credence to the probability of rare events. When they make decisions based on information, they give more credence to the probability of rare events.

I'm over-simplifying -- please read the paper for more -- but what intrigued me is it's like a self-imposed kind of decision-making hypochondria. Banking on information is more likely to make you catastrophize.

So how does this fit with baseball? It's a stats game. That's a huge part of what we all love about it. Did I mention I actually subscribe now to baseball-reference.com's play index?

But this data might indicate that, for players at least, the more you research, the more you may be swayed by what you think you know. (This pitcher hit 16 guys last year!)

In contrast, the more you go with experience (this is the guy who pitched inside on my last at-bat), the more you probably just swing for the fences and hope for the best.

Maybe the outcome is the same. Or maybe you just feel better about it. But either way, it can't hurt to know that what you know -- or think you know -- might very well hurt as much as it helps.

Or...maybe not. It's just a thought. We gotta ponder something on these damn no-baseball days!

That's Baseball

When CC hit his home run today and happily rounded the bases, I was reminded of one of my favorite plays: Take Me Out.

There's this great part where Mason, the money manager for the main character who is a baseball superstar, has just begun to watch baseball and is falling in love with it.

He says:

"Another thing I like is the home-run trot....What I like about it is it's so unnecessary.

The ball's gone, no one's going to bring it back. And can anyone doubt that a man capable of launching a ball four hundred feet is somehow going to fail to touch a base when he's running uninterfered with?

For all intents and purposes, the game, at that moment, is not being played.

If duration of game is an issue - and I'm given to believe that duration of game is an issue - the sensible thing would be to say, yes, that's gone, add a point to the score, and send the next batter to the plate.

But that's not what happens.

Instead, play is suspended for a celebration.

A man rounds four bases, and if he's with the home team, the crowd has a catharsis.

And from the way he runs, you learn something about the man. And from the way they cheer, you learn something about the crowd.

...And it seems to me that to conduct this ceremony not before a game or after a game but in the very heart of a game is...quite...well, does any other game do that?

That's baseball."

I love that quote, and I love baseball for that and many other reasons. And, I highly recommend the play, which you can buy here.

Happy All-Star break...and how great to go out with a win.

Play It Again, Corey...Please

I'm thrilled we swept Pittsburgh; couldn't be happier for J.J. that the big hits continue; and I'm psyched about the Sabathia deal.

But there is one bummer this weekend that I can't let go unmentioned, and that's the end of Corey Hart's at-bat song.

After three months of grinning every time his song pipes in, I was shocked this weekend when he headed to the plate and a different song started blaring. I actually thought it was a mistake!

But he's had enough at-bats since then to be sure...the old song is history.

Such a shame. It was a good, rocking, country tune that seemed like a perfect, sassy ode to every state full of farmlands and real people.

So, in tribute before the song is totally gone from my memory, here are the words to International Harvester...definitely my favorite at-bat song ever.

I’m the son of a 3rd generation farmer
Been married 10 years to the farmer’s daughter
I’m a God fearin’ hard workin’ combine driver
Hoggin’ up the road on my p-p-p-p-plower
Chug-a-lug-a-luggin’ 5 miles an hour
On my International Harvester

Three miles of cars layin’ on their horns
Fallin’ on deaf ears of corn
Lined up behind me like a big parade
Of late-to-work, road-raged jerks
Shoutin’ obscene, words flippin’ me the bird

Well, you may be on a state-paved road
But that blacktop runs through my payload
Excuse me for tryin’ to do my job
But this year ain’t been no bumper crop

If you don’t like the way I’m a drivin’
Get back on the interstate
Otherwise sit tight and be nice
And quit yer honkin’ at me that way

Cause I’m a son of a 3rd generation farmer
I’ve been married 10 years to a farmer’s daughter
I got 2 boys in the county 4-H
I’m a lifetime sponsor of the F.F.A.
Hay! That’s what I make
I make a lotta hay for a little pay
But I’m proud to say
I’m a God fearin’ hard workin’ combine driver
Hoggin’ up the road on my a p-p-p-plower
Chug a lug a lugin’ 5 miles an hour
On my International Harvester

Well I know you got your own deadlines
But cussin’ me ain’t savin’ no time
This big-wheeled wide load ain’t goin’ any faster
So just smile and wave,
And tip your hat
To the man up on the tractor

Cause I’m a son of a 3rd generation farmer
I’ve been married 10 years to a farmer’s daughter
I got two boys in the county 4-H
I’m a lifetime sponsor of the F.F.A.
Hay! That’s what I make
I make a lot of hay for a little pay
But I’m proud to say
I’m a God fearin’ hard workin’ combine driver
Hoggin’ up the road on my p-p-p-plower
Chug a lug a lugin’ 5 miles an hour
On my International Harvester

And, here's a link to the song if you want to hear/see it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b52SDopaMZY