I Give Up - I Just Don't Know

By Spencer Kimball

As I read Meredith's post, it was very quickly apparent that her point of view and mine were not the same - and I was thinking as I read about the elements of that disparity.

First, of course, there's the history. I was a casual A's fan in high school, enough so I knew the typical starting lineup now and then, and had an idea of their rank in the standings. When they were in the postseason, I would listen to or watch a game, but it was likely to be background-ish, along the lines of Meredith's description of some of the River Cats attendees. But I already had, even then, some fundamental orientation points that would provide the drama that the game is about: the fast base stealer on first; the long ball hitter in a sacrifice situation; the pitcher's escape from the bases-loaded quagmire; the pursuit of a record, and a key inflection point on the way. I don't know when I acquired them, but definitely by Senior Year I could talk with others about them with some confidence. And it wasn't because I had any athletic talent myself. I was almost always last chosen for anything.

In the years between my 20th and 30th birthdays, I paid little attention to baseball, for a variety of reasons. But in 1981, I attended my first game, a Dodgers game as they entered the postseason, after watching a few games in the leadup. And I found myself fairly disoriented; the park at Chavez Ravine seemed gargantuan, seemed to have its own sort of microclimate, haze, noises. And the players seemed quite distant, and it was hard to figure out where to look.

The directors and cameramen involved in broadcasts are really good - it's very rare that they miss even a bulletlike liner to some fielder. They can switch on an instant from the "default" behind-the-pitcher view to wherever the action is, and from double play to long bomb they are right where they need to be - so much so that you don't really think too much about what you missed until they make a point of bringing to your attention, say, how nice a jump the runner at first got to make it home, or how the second baseman was overshifted a bit too far. And so with their coddling, you lose track of how hard it is to get the long view that allows you to see something coming once the ball's in play. So I found that half the time something interesting happened on the field, I completely missed it, even though I wasn't really particularly distracted, and I was interested in keeping track.

After going to a few more games in SoCal, I found I could sort of get a handle on things - and then came a hiatus of twenty years or so. And so the same kind of disorientation applied again when I went to Oakland for an A's game, but less so a couple of years later at AT&T park, and really very little on my last visit there, when I actually was watching as the first base umpire sent the runner on a balk.

But there was more to it, my engagement in the game, than just figuring out how to watch. The inherent drama was a result of, in particular, those few years in the 80's, watching the Royals, or the Dodgers, or the Phillies march through the postseason. Watching sometimes three complete games in a row if the timing was favorable, that sort of sag associated with an offensive mismatch, the high-scoring game unpredictability, the building tension of the pitching duel (that last, I suspect, is what some football fans refer to in saying that nothing happens in America's Pastime.) And in the middle of this season, I realize as I watch a game that, my disgust with a bad outing notwithstanding, there is something going on pretty much every inning.

And I imagine it's more so with those more involved. I mean, I can't name the teams on a league or division. I typically only know what's happening with a handful of players not on the SF roster, and I tend not to remember ERAs, streaks, and batting averages even vaguely. How much more engaged would the viewer be who knows the history between pitcher and batter, or which outfielder has the "cannon", or which shortstop the knack of making the off-balance play?

And in my case, does it have something to do with being less interested in NFL or NBA? The fact that it uses a bat? The peculiar skills required of a pitcher? The "game face"?  - I give up, I just don't know.