Magical Geometry

I think it is time for us to take a moment and admire baseball.

Is it rigged like football? The jury is still out, but in the meanwhile, we can wax poetic about the game, itself, and ignore the specific iteration that has become the MLB.

First, baseball a 3 season sport. That doesn't mean that the players play during 3 seasons (though they do) but that the sport is, as part of our cultural parlance, become identified with three distinct seasons, something no other sport has accomplished.

Baseball blooms like the early buds, who embrace the spring as it shakes off the winter and use their early flowers to make us all appreciate the change from snow and ice. Baseball heralds the warmth of the spring, and the promise of renewal, a new season, a new chance for the Mets to suck again. Like I said, poetry. It has a spring season which both matters and doesn't, but it is part of the entire baseball season. "It's warm again and there's new grass on the field."

The boys of summer really hit their pace as summer sets in. All the associations (hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet included) of the sport with summer, independence, and American Ingénue-ity, all the way to the Midsummer Classic and beyond identify baseball with the summer -- the heat, the sweat, the flies and grounders.

Then we have the autumn, dominated by the World Series and fall ball. Crisp, clear evenings watching a team work its way through the playoffs easing our way into shorter days and a chill in the air as we near the Fall Classic.

The game defines and is defined by 3 quarters of the year (and the winter meetings plus the various winter leagues) and that's awesome.

Then we have the miracle that is the dimensions in baseball. Somehow, the distance of 90 feet down the baseline is the exact right distance to make ground balls thrown to first a close play. Somehow, the distance of 3-450 feet seems to be the right dimension to weed out the home run hitters from others.

Were the numbers and angles and sizes etc built knowing the limits of human, physical performance, or have we evolved into a species which has certain responses based on the demands of baseball? Was the distance down the lines or from the pitcher to home tinkered with to find the optimal numbers, based on trial and error and human effort? If the distance down the line had been set at 85 feet, would we make for better and faster infielders or just more men on base? Are we driven by baseball, or does baseball reflect some established limitations and reality?

One third of the season is gone and the magic continues.

LFGM