As Joe Posnanski and Vin Scully know, Baseball’s Virtue is Time

There’s few things I enjoy reading, and I know that as a writer, this tends to be a pretty hypocritical stance when it comes to literature. But there’s something about the way that some writers can word things, that open my eyes and magnetize my soul. Now, more than ever, baseball writer Joe Posnanski is that guy.

In the July 25th edition of Sports Illustrated, which arrived Wednesday in the homes of the magazine’s subscribers, Posnanski details his journey across America this summer to find the meaning of baseball, and how, in essence, the game has stayed relevant to its fans in the same way it did in 1891. Among stops to the games hallowed grounds like Fenway Park and tales of Derek Jeter’s quest for immortality and Ichiro’s knack for the English language,  Posnanski asked none other than our own Vin Scully about the meaning of baseball. Here’s an excerpt from the Sports Illustrated article, as it pertained to Posnanski’s trip to Dodger Stadium on July 7th:

"The Dodgers are bankrupt, but the promotions department obviously has been working overtime because tonight’s game is both Andre Ethier Throwback Bobblehead Doll Night and Salute to Mary Hart Night. This irresistible double whammy –spring-necked dolls of the Dodgers’ third best player and an all-night tribute to the longtime host of Entertainment Tonight– has brought a sellout crowd of 56,000 to Dodger Stadium for only the second time since Opening Day. They used to sell out games here almost every night.“The meaning of baseball, eh?” Vin Scully says. He looks at his watch — he does not have much time, the game will begin soon– and he sits down at a table in the corner of the Dodgers’ lunchroom. Scully turns 84 in November. He still spends the bulk of his summer doing the only thing he has wanted to do since he crawled under the family radio as a boy and listened to the sound of the crowd cheering. He calls Dodgers baseball games, of course, like he has since before he and the team moved from Brooklyn to LA. in 1958.“Dreams and escape,” Scully says after a short pause.  “And when we grow older, the game provides our escape from the troubles of day-to-day life.”Scully smiles, stands, excuses himself. He must get to the booth. I ask him if he still believes in these things now, in 2011, with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt threatening lawsuits and struggling every month just to make payroll, with the franchise now needing bobbleheads and celebrity tributes to draw its once loyal fans (the teams has led the National League in attendance 28 times in its half century in Southern California), with jury selection going on in the Roger Clemens perjury case, with the constant drumbeat of stories and opinions about how baseball matters less and less to America. Vin nods, and puts his hand on my shoulder.“Dreams and escape,” he says again, “now more than ever.”Joe Posnanski, “Loving Baseball”Sports Illustrated, p. 50. July 25, 2011"

Vin is right. And for those of you who will read the rest of Posnanski’s piece, you’ll find out that he’s right too. Baseball is more about the resistance to adversity, than the adversity itself. It’s more about getting out of jams and pickles, than getting in them. That’s what makes it beautiful.

While America raises a generation determined to living life on-the-go, it would make sense that baseball could give people that escape from the timely deadlines that surround our workplaces, schools and homes. It’s the game without the need for measuring time, despite measuring everything from plate appearances to  luck. It’s the game based on the evasion of running out of time. It’s “timeless”, as Posnanski says.

So why is it that baseball is losing its touch with our youth? It’s the game we all played as children, and it’s the game for which half of all American slang derives from.  Why is it that every seven-year-old in Los Angeles wants to be the next Andre Ethier, but every 15-year-old dreams of being the next Kobe Bryant?

The answer in short, is time.

Being a boy is about throwing caution to the wind and defying the reality of time. It’s about moments of freedom and ambition. In turn, it’s about dreams. But as we evolve, so do our expectations. So it’s not a surprise that the idea of being a man is fixed upon timely success. Supporting families, having careers and managing finances require punctuality, and damper a childlike sense of wonder.

So naturally, baseball is a boy’s game, while football is considered a game for men. But that shouldn’t be a degradation of baseball, but more of the thrill of the game itself. Like Scully said to Posnanski, it’s the escape, and an escape that all of us could use.

Back before television and radio, baseball was our country’s escape to a drab, blue collar oppression. Now, 120 years after Posnanski’s hallmark year of 1891, we’re oppressed by iPhones, Twitter, TMZ and even this measly little blog.

Football and basketball play into that oppression, limiting play with a play-clock and a shot-clock, with both games seemingly made for television. But for as exciting as those games can be, and claim to be, it is their rigidness that will never eclipse the depths of baseball.

Baseball permits stealing, has a million unwritten gentlemanly rules, and allows its audience to play a part and take score. That interaction and complexity is liberating in itself, and as Posnanski would agree, helps define the game’s eternal soul as we know it.

Baseball is our escape. Vin Scully is our dreamer.

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