Baseball for Golfers

This was sent to me by a friend who happens to be a Dodgers fan who hates Jeff Kent, and not just for his stupid baserunning in the Game 1 against the Mets. I think it had to be copied from a pamphlet handed out at a PGA event, as the golf references are a tad thick.

Original Link Clicky!

By Michael Gartner

The hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball safely.Think about it as you watch the playoffs and the World Series.

You are standing at home plate with a bat in your hands. A big man is standing on a hill - it's 15 inches high, to give him enormous leverage over you - getting ready to throw the baseball. By the time he lets go of the ball, it will be about 55 feet from you. The ball is coming at the plate - or perhaps at you - at up to 100 miles an hour. It turns 12 or 13 times. It can drop as much as 3 feet. It can curve toward you or away from you. You have less than a second to decide what to do: Stand there. Swing. Or duck.

If you swing one one-hundredth of a second too late - or too early - you're likely to hit a foul ball. If you hit the ball, you are supposed to hit it between or over or through the nine guys standing there trying to stop you. In the immortal words of Wee Willie Keeler, you have to "hit 'em where they ain't." And all you have to hit 'em with is a round piece of wood that at its widest is not as big as the baseball it is trying to connect with.

Then, if you hit it, you have to run 90 feet as fast as you can.

You have to do this three or four times a game, 162 games a year. And if you don't do it successfully at least 25% of the times you're standing there, you're a failure.

But that's not all. The whole time you're standing there trying to hit the ball, tens of thousands of people are yelling at you - for you or against you. The man crouched behind the plate is chattering. The players on both benches might be yelling. The umpire is telling you to speed it up. Your boss is sending you hand signals. Flashbulbs are going off everywhere. People are milling around.

It's that last part - the crowds, the cameras, the cheers and screams - that add the excitement. And it makes you wonder:

Why can't you cheer during Tiger Woods' backswing? Why can't you yell as Phil Mickelson putts? Why can't you scream as Ernie Els blasts out of a sand trap?

Why can't you click the camera as Sergio Garcia addresses the ball? Why can't you pop a flashbulb as Jim Furyk chips onto the green? Why can't you wave your arms as Retief Goosen lines up his second shot?

Just try it. Did you see Woods glare and mutter a few weeks ago at the simple click of a camera? He is a great athlete with storied powers of concentration, so why can't he ignore the click of a camera, the pop of a flashbulb, the cheer of a fan? The ball he is trying to hit is teed up - not being thrown. It is just sitting there. The club he is using - and he has his choice of several - has a head on it that is thicker than the ball or an angle to it that lets him place it just where he wants it. He can swing when ready - not when some opponent throws the ball. When he hits the ball, no one is trying to catch it or block it or divert it. And after he hits it, he can walk leisurely down the fairway.

Why must we be so reverential about all this?

It makes no sense.

Think how much more fun watching golf would be if we could cheer or boo or yell or scream.

Think how much less fun watching baseball would be if we couldn't.

Michael Gartner, a retired journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1997, is the principal owner of the Iowa Cubs, the triple-A farm team of the Chicago Cubs.