Rain Delay Meanderings

Well, I was hoping to do a little rain out meandering, to be honest, one of those columns that wanders around with no direction and tends toward the abstract and philosophical. You know, just because I can. And because SDM asked for some group therapy. (Here’s my shot, anyway.)



Even though the postponement didn’t happen, I’m going to meander anyway.

Sometimes a writer has to write something for himself to rekindle the fires, and for me if it means I can drop in some ideas from outside the narrow arenas of baseball and popular culture, then I like to do it from time to time. It keeps me from getting into a rut. Moreover, if it gets anyone else thinking about some of this stuff, whether or not they agree with me, even better.



I was thinking a bit the other day about fantasy baseball, because some of my friends are into it. (Who doesn’t have friends into it?) It’s never appealed to me – not even close – and I think I can explain why rather simply.



It’s like this: it just does not sound like fun to me poring over a team of players on paper who don’t actually get to go out and play baseball games together.



Think about any of the arts – music, architecture, literature, painting, cinema, whatever. It might be great to bring together several masters and let them collaborate, but it’s the collaboration or the synthesis, the overall effect and not the individual expressions, that would be the paramount accomplishment. Even when artists have individual works selected for a collection or anthology, there’s something bigger to consider.



A jam session is where the magic of musical expression happens; a skyline or even a street of fine houses is brilliant because several buildings complement each other in surprising ways; an anthology opens new understanding by placing writing next to other works; an exhibition lets one engage art on a deeper level; and ALL art is only powerful inasmuch as it involves both reverence for and exploration from a tradition and context. There’s dissonance and yet cohesion, innovation and yet influence, and when it’s good, art is somehow both humbling yet inspiring. Meaning and value, in the sense that art conveys them, come from culture.



There are two obvious differences between baseball and the arts. One is that you can’t play baseball by yourself; there is no possibility even of considering an individual performance. Not really. Everything is in the context of a game with at least 17 other players. The other difference is that unlike art, baseball is quantifiable. There are numbers for everything. And even more significant, those numbers can be considered individually, and in isolation.



Numbers. In some contexts I like math. I think that algebra and calculus and physics are all elegant, and there’s a part of me that likes crunching statistics and analyzing trends. I like logic and reason. I even like comparing team statistics despite the notion that they’re somewhat pointless because the only team number that really matters is the loss column. With all that math that I like, however, I just can’t bring myself to like the idea of assembling baseball players -- or really, their numbers -- on a fantasy team.



Here’s the turn: to do this – to spend time on a fantasy baseball team – would be to move baseball away from art and more towards science.



There’s no doubt baseball is something of both. For that matter, there’s a little bit of science to every art (pi and the Golden Mean come to mind) and a little bit of art to every science (the elegance and awe of astrophysics, for one). Baseball is rather unique, however, for the extent to which it involves both. There’s more science and more art in baseball than any other sport, I would argue. No other sport is as measured and precise in its play, yet also graceful and – dare I say? – meaningful. Meaningful, as in emotionally identifiable for a fan. Meaningful, like watching a powerful movie or viewing an expressive painting or photograph. Yet all that style can exist only because 60' 6" is the perfect distance to the rubber, and 90' is the perfect distance to first, and because a 45 degree angle from the line of the pitch is the perfect angle for a foul ball.



On science, every team is like an experiment or a hypothesis: If we can get these pieces together, analysis goes, they will win at least so many games. It’s based on numbers and statistics and trends. There is a way to measure: wins and losses. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s far from arbitrary. The numbers aren’t all that wrong in most cases.



But there are also the games themselves, and even the plays, which are occasionally things of beauty. 2 for 5, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 2 Ks does not come anywhere close to capturing the at bats of a player: what if that homerun, or one of those strikeouts, was in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game? What if the other hit besides the home run was a superb line drive to the opposite alley? I just can’t see getting excited over the box score line compared to the at bats themselves.



The easy counterpoint to make to my position advocating the art of baseball over the science is that the two are not mutually exclusive. One can be a fan of the artistic side of baseball and yet enjoy the science of baseball. It’s like economics: just because you spend time forecasting financial trends doesn’t mean you don’t like having and spending money, and one can even enhance the appreciation for the other. Very true, and it probably demonstrates that much of this is probably a matter of personality and what appeals to you. Some people don’t like Pink Floyd and I can’t imagine why, but dispositions are what they are.



I also understand fantasy baseball is about competition, healthy competition for that matter, which is all well and good. I just don’t want to use baseball as my vehicle for competition. I want it to be my release; I want to follow someone else’s story and struggle. In my case it’s the Cubs. (Struggle indeed.)



I’m not trying to discourage anyone from enjoying fantasy baseball. More power to you if you enjoy it. There are plenty of ways to enjoy baseball, and if the idea of acting like a general manager assembling an abstract team works for you, that’s cool.



I just hope you can see the other side of it. Baseball for me appeals as art because that’s how I want to use it. There’s only so much time, and I don’t have enough to do both. I prefer the way a season – an era – unfolds like literature. I am mesmerized by the way a ball field looks in that perfect moment between the national anthem and when the players take the field. I like the feeling of a tense moment in the late innings of a pitcher’s duel. Most of all, I trust that all of these things are even better when you spend as much time watching as many of the games your team plays as you can.



There’s actually a point to all this, and it lets me transition now to the therapy. SDM asked for it, and it’s very much in order. So, here’s my best shot:



For better or worse, Kerry Wood has been the leader of this team since 2002, if not 2001. At least that’s what it’s seemed like to me. He’s been the guy with the fire smoldering, that captain-in-charge air about him. It wasn’t Sammy; it isn’t Lee or Ramirez or Barrett. It isn’t Prior or Zambrano, or even Maddux. None of those guys have the particular intensity of a team leader. None of these guys have that intensity of Kerry Wood. That blend of confidence and positive competitive anger coupled with overpowering ability – Wood’s the guy who has it.



And if ever there was a player who demands one appeal to the aesthetic side rather than the analytical side in order to like him, it’s Wood. His numbers do not portray him as dominant. But at times, he is. Numbers to the side, sometimes when you watch Kerry Wood pitch, you can just feel that you’re watching one of the best pitchers in the league. Maybe you’d rather have a guy with 80% of Wood’s stuff and a lot more consistency, and I can understand that. But it’s just not as much fun to watch, or at least not as engaging, and right now I feel like we all need something of the fun of a good Kerry Wood start.



It’s no secret that Wood has been my favorite Cub for a confluence of reasons and circumstances. And it’s not coincidence that I like him even though he would have been a torturous fantasy baseball player to have on one’s roster. So you can take all this with a grain of salt. I’m not suggesting that Wood is going to turn the season around. My only point is that his first start is our best shot at injecting some vigor back into a listless season.



Tomorrow Wood will pitch. He will probably not be great. But there’s that corner of my mind that knows there’s a chance he will be. Or that he will be soon. There’s that part of me that still believes he can be elite. He’s still the guy I feel like I don’t want to miss a start for because you never know when something truly special may take place. The table has been set with a pair of impressive wins over the Nationals. The gloom has passed, and it’s time for a sign that the 2006 season is not yet hopeless.



Screw reason. It’s time for passion. It’s time for someone to take charge. And if not Wood, who else is gonna do it?