The Rice Ripens
Sept 1–6, Hunenberg, Switzerland
Seasonal Memoir Entry #24
They call boxing the “sweet science”, and while I’ve never had a taste for it (as spectator or participant), every sport out there offers some incredible “wow” moments when you dissect and analyze it.
For example, let’s look at baseball (and softball). A right-handed batter trying to pull an outside pitch will ground the ball to the shortstop, almost always in the traditional placement of the #6 infielder. This is counter-intuitive, as you’d think the batter’s ball would go to the right, or just go randomly to the left side of the diamond. It takes an “inside out” swing on an outside pitch to get the ball to the right. Physics.
Another marvel is the incredibly fine balance between pitcher and batter. The mound is famously 60 feet 6 inches from home plate, and it’s also elevated exactly 10 inches off the flat ground. If you mess with any of those two dimensions, such as lowering the mound to be level with the batter, or moving the mound either farther or closer to home plate, then the pitcher or batter would get a distinct advantage, thus putting the game into chaos (think about a game where scoring is very rare (soccer!), or a game that lasts five hours because of all the runs (cricket!)). In the game’s 150+ year history, only steroids in the players, sticky substances on the baseball (applied covertly by the pitchers), or “juiced” or “dead” baseballs have thrown this delicate balance out of whack. It’s this parity that allows baseball fanatics to credibly debate who was a better batter, Ty Cobb or Tony Gwynn, and who was a better pitcher, Sandy Koufax or Gerrit Cole.
Switzerland continues to amaze with little treasures here and there. The latest was a full baseball field behind my flat, amid the corn fields (“build it and they will come”?). Of course, the local high school put a track in the middle of left field, but it does have a batting cage!
