November 08, 2025

Oh, That's a Baseball!

So… baseball. It’s a game where two teams rotate between pitching balls and, well, hitting balls. They do this rotation nine times. Or 10. Or 33. Major League Baseball (or MLB for short) is kind of its own thing in the Big 4 North American sports scene in terms of scheduling: it’s the only league playing in the summer and ends its season in the fall. I’m posting this because I wanted to share my experience with the previous World Series and totally not because I’m slacking off on the NR2003 Career Project.

I’m fairly certain that my first full baseball games were last year’s World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. I found the games… mildly interesting. Didn’t know nor remember any of the players, but I remember being… “oh cool” about it. I was far more invested when the World Series started up this year…

Los Angeles was now pitted against the Toronto Blue Jays, the sole franchise based outside the United States ¹. I saw bits and pieces of the first few games, but watched Game 6 and 7 in full as

1. The next days were weekends so I won’t be a dead man at work
2. The Blue Jays entered both games with a chance to win the World Series As a Canadian, I was obviously rooting for the Jays. I wasn’t around to see their triumphs in 1992-93 nor I was really closely supporting them until I saw everyone else talking about it. So, I decided to tune in and see what the buzz was all about.

And while the Jays lost both games and the Dodgers stole the win in the 11th inning of Game 7, I have to say: Baseball is fun.

But why is it fun? My guess: suspense.

Just for Game 6, the two teams combined for 289 pitches, and those airborne balls were fast. Like… well over the posted highway speed limit over here. And the batter is pretty freaking close to the pitcher and has to react in about… I don’t know, less than a second?

Most of the time, the batter either misses the ball or the pitcher doesn’t throw it in that magic box they show on screen. There were only 12 hits in that game, which is just over 4% of pitches. But the suspense builds up with each strike or foul ball as I anticipated the next hit… And when it hits… so many things can happen…

• Does the ball get knocked out of the field for a home run?
• Does a well-positioned outfielder catch it?
• If caught or lands in the outfield, will the men at the bases make it to the next one? Will the one on third make it to home base for a run?

That suspense is what made baseball pretty entertaining to me. It was a spectacle of patience and timing.

So where does this go from here? Well… I don’t know. While the local team is a clear pick of mine, following a 162-game regular season (and with each game being 3-4 hours that’s nearly over 600 hours) seems like a huge ask. I also know very little about the players and the lore of the sport ². But if I find myself liking it enough, I’ll make time for this. I usually do.

And… perhaps a visit to the Rogers Centre Skydome would be worthwhile…

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