THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

After 37 votes:

It’s 62% v 38% against all the sentimental crap.  That’s answers 1,2,3 v 4,5.

I continue to maintain that if men put this much emotion into their marriages, the divorce rate would be cut in half. 

“Do you remember the first time we had brunch together?”

“No, but I remember where I was sitting when I saw a double from Jeter that put us up by 2 runs, with 12 games to go in the season!”

I think that in many instances in life, people misplace their sentiments towards material objects (Churches, flags, stadiums, etc.) They confuse the symbolism that the object represents with the object itself.

Sure Post #2, but you can be aware that you’re ‘confusing’ these and still enjoy ‘confusing’ them.  And in baseball, unlike sometimes with national flags and such, it doesn’t matter if people are confusing these.  The silly part is caring about the game to begin with.  Once we accept caring about the game, feeling attachment to the physical pieces and spaces of the game’s history is… fine.

If it doesn’t work that way for you (Tango, I guess), nobody should make you feel bad about it.  (Perhaps tease you occasionally, but not actually make you feel bad.) And if sportswriters are constantly writing as if everyone feels sentimental about buildings (and if that’s what’s provoking your arguments), then they should be more sensitive to differences.  But don’t go crusading to invalidate other people’s feelings.

I hope the set-up of the poll is fully tongue-in-cheek.  There are basically four versions of “Of course I agree this is sentimental crap.” And one dissenting option worded in a rather ‘holding one’s nose’ fashion.

I’ve never been to NYC, let alone Yankee Stadium, and I root against NY’s baseball teams (due to obnoxious ‘80s Mets and perpetual overdog Yankees).  But I understand the feeling, and would love to have seen the stadium.  And for example, I’d think it was cool if a team museum was built such that it was actually on top of the old home plate area or some such.  (I have no idea if there are such plans and would be somewhat surprised if there are.)

Also, the argument in post #1 falsely implies that those are mutually exclusive emotional investments.  On the contrary, I can (a bit fancifully) imagine a sensitivity course tailored for not-romantic-in-relationships guys that’d use the experience of emotional investment in aspects of baseball as a familiar starting-point model for what they could put into relationships, or for what might be expected / wanted by their partners.

It makes no less sense compared to post #1 to argue that guys who feel nothing for a history-laden ballpark would also be guys incapable of good mushy feelings for their partners.

People can feel however they want to feel.

I *feel* that the written words of those feelings are contrived.  I’m sure all those men have loved ones.  I’d like to know the last time those men wrote such heartfelt words to their loved ones… you know, the ones they actually care about with every fiber of their being.  And since these articles were more like eulogies, how often have those writers actually given a eulogy to a dear human being passing on?

The people writing all the tear-filled articles are those that are paid to do so, or in an environment where it is necessary for them to write such articles.

In what should have been a touching moment, it gets blown up into something more real than it was.

One may feel however they want to.  I just don’t have to believe that the written words of those feelings represent their own reality.