Ten Reasons to Love Baseball

Baseball is my favorite sport, bar none. I may do the "NBA Recaps" but baseball has always been #1 in my book. There are many reasons to love baseball, but I've narrowed my list down to ten (in no particular order).

Anybody Can Play - I alluded to this in a comment before, but it's pretty much true. Now obviously you have to be good at baseball to play, but unlike the NFL, NBA, or even the NHL you don't have to be a physical specimen to play. Look at players like Babe Ruth, John Kruk, Pablo Sandoval, and Fernando Valenzuela. None of these guys are winning 40-yard dashes or leaping 42", but they were very good baseball. As long as you can hit, pitch, or field, you can play baseball. You don't have to be 6'5 and have 12% body-fat percentage, unlike the other 3 major sports (hockey is getting bigger and more athletic).

No Clock - One of my favorite aspects of the game is the lack of clock. The inning structure is beautiful because if your team has "momentum," (though there really isn't momentum in baseball) teams can continue playing until they stop performing well; teams dictate when the games end, not a clock.

Games Within a Game - Baseball is like the PacMan Fever or Mario Party of sports; there are mini-games! The pitcher vs. the hitter is the most frequent mini game, but there's also runner vs. pitcher, runner vs. catcher, runner vs. fielder, and batter vs. fielder. There are so maylayers to the game that you don't really see in any other sport.

Stats! - One of the best parts of baseball is analyzing it to death. If you're a math junkie, baseball is the best sport. RBI, OBP, VORP, BABIP, PECOTA, OPS, ERA, WHIP, on and on and on. Baseball is one of the easiest games to quantify due to all the saber metrics out today. These stats are fun to use when comparing players from different eras or compiling a fantasy team.

Movies - The sport of baseball produces the best sports movies. The Bad News Bears, The Sandlot, The Natural, Major League, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out.......

Thinking Man's Game - This is kind of what I was talking about in the first entry. The game is less about being bigger and faster than the other team and more about wondering if a sac fly or a bunt is better in a certain situation.

It's On the Players - Baseball is probably more of an individual game than a team game. A player is alone at bat, and he, not a teammate dictates his success. That's probably the Baseball Hall of Fame is the most prestigious (and picky) of the HOFs. For example, Babe Ruth was a legendary player because he was immensely talented, not because he had good blocking.

Down on the Farm - Baseball has the best minors system in sports. This leads to players developing and honing there skills. That's why you never hear about MLB Draft Busts, because bad players are generally weeded out in the minors.

Following - Baseball is the easiest sport to get into after putting it on halfway. Because it is a slow, methodical game, one can turn the game on at anytime and know what's going on right away. This is untrue for basketball and hockey, where the game is constantly moving, and it can be hard to follow what's going on if you haven't watched what happened before.

Being There - Whether you're on the first baseline or up in the bleachers, there is no better sport to watch in person than baseball. There is nothing cooler in sports than the home crowd standing and clapping on an 0-2 pitch towards the end of a game, whether their team is at bat or in the field. My favoritesports memory comes from last year at a Red Sox game. They were playing the Oakland A's in a regular season game. But this was Nomar's return to Fenway after leaving in 2004. The feeling when he went to bat for the first time and everyone stood and cheered for a good two minutes was indescribable. That's baseball at its best.

So there you have, 10 reasons to love baseball. Agree or disagree, let us know YOUR thoughts.