Baseball doesn't have the lightning fast action of hockey, the constant scoring of basketball, or the regularly occuring, bone-crushing collisions of football. It is a sport oft accused of inducing large yawns, and while I disagree, I understand the accusation. But our national pastime has something those other sports do not... something that, in my mind, is one of the most exciting events in the realm of professional athletics. Baseball has the physical and psychological match-up between the pitcher and the batter.
We've all felt it. A one-run game. Runners on second and third with two outs. A big hitter steps up to the plate. The catcher signals his call. The pitcher starts his delivery. No matter which team you're rooting for, the anticipation for the next pitch is almost unbearable. Heaven forbid the batter fouls it off. Then we have to do it all over again.
For a team sport, it's amazing how much a baseball game comes down to a classic, one-on-one, show down.
Every at-bat is a competition within itself - a game within the game - and each show down has its winner and its loser. The pitcher tries to get in the head of the batter. A pitch high and inside may not get a strike call, but it makes the batter think twice about leaning too far over the plate, making him vulnerable to a subsequent pitch that catches the outside corner. Similarly, a couple of off-speed pitches can throw off the batter's timing, setting him up for a blazing fastball (or the other way around). The batter tries to deduce the speed and location of the incoming pitch. He studies the pitcher from the dug-out and on-deck circle to learn his tricks. With less than half a second to react, the batter needs to start timing his swing before the ball even leaves the pitchers hand. It's one of the most difficult endeavors for an athlete in all of sports. That's why a batter who FAILS to get a hit 7 out 10 times is considered to be doing well.
My favorite story of a pitcher/batter match-up comes from Bob "the Bullet" Turley, a two-time world champion with the New York Yankees in the '50s. I saw Mr. Turley speak in 2011 at the Cy Young Festival, which takes place annually in Newcomerstown, Ohio - the rural hometown of the game's most winning pitcher. Someone asked Mr. Turley, that year's honoree, to name the toughest batter he ever faced. The Bullet identified Nellie Fox, confessing that he never could quite solve the 15 time all-star. The accomplished pitcher recalled one at-bat in which he started Nellie off with an inside fastball that he believes the prolific hitter intentionally leaned into. It enraged Turley that a player who had such a long history of getting the best of their match-ups would resort to such a sneaky tactic to get on base. As Fox jogged down the line, Turley yelled "So you like getting hit by my pitches, Nellie?"
When Nellie Fox came to bat a few innings later, Turley exacted his revenge by throwing one of his "bullets" at Fox's lower back, explaining to his 2011 audience "you can jump over a pitch to the legs, and duck under a pitch to the shoulders... when I wanted to hit a player, I aimed for the lower back." The resulting THUD of ball on body told the pitcher his plan had succeeded. This time, as Fox slowly made his way to first, the aching base-runner yelled "No, Bob, I don't like getting hit by your pitches!" You have to love a game in which the team throwing a rock-hard projectile 90+ mph at a relatively unprotected batter is considered to be playing "defense".
Photos taken by Danial Orange: 1) A minor league baseball game at Harry Grove Stadium (Frederick Keys); 2) Cy Young statue at the site of the first World Series, in Boston, Mass; 3) Willie Mays statue outside AT&T Park in San Francisco; 4) Bob Turley 1958 Topps Baseball Card (signed); 5) Bob Turley speaking at the Cy Young Festival in 2011
