The news cycle the last few weeks has been such that I feel the only way to observe it is through my eclipse glasses. Staring at it too long will burn my retina.
So in times like these when I'm both repulsed by events and swept powerlessly along in the swirling tide of history, I instead turn to one of the only things that has remained a constant throughout my life.
Baseball.
And no, this isn't "Field of Dreams." It's just that, when all else seems to be crumbling around me, I can always rely on baseball. It's the first game I ever played, the first game my father and I could both, on some level, participate in together, one of the few unchanging things in a world that has changed so, so much in my lifetime.
Now, that's not necessarily a good thing, and I decline to get all dewy over it. This isn't some mystical experience for me. I like the game, there's a lot of it available, it's pretty absorbing and yet still allows plenty of time and opportunity for me to be snarky. And go fix a sandwich. And perform simple household chores.
OK, it takes a while.
Actually, that's an understatement. Islands have formed in less time than it takes a relief pitcher to go through the signs. And this is a guy with exactly two pitches: fastball up, slider down.
By all rights, someone with my tiny little attention span should run screaming from baseball. I mean, I read a book, skim a magazine, check my phone and do some work on my laptop while watching murder mysteries, and nine times out of 10 I still know whodunit.
But to be a baseball fan is to either be engrossed in the most picayune aspects of the game or to sit back and wallow in the absurdity of the thing, all while hollering for the Cardinals to win.
Take, for instance, the dichotomy of the event itself. In the "Modern Era," (think the advent of double knits over flannel uniforms. Or, don't, if you ever saw the Houston Astros play in the 70s. Talk about the need for eclipse glasses), baseball has become virtually addicted to stats, numbers, probabilities and spreadsheets.
Every day, new measurements with names like "RISP" and "WHIP" are thrown around as if (a) we know what they mean, and (b) they actually mean anything.
Entire organizations have been given over to people who had to decide between this and figuring out how to get to Mars, and whose sole function is to break the game down into measurable increments and then wring every ounce of unpredictability out of them in an effort to manage outcomes.
And yet grown men will wear their hats with the bill sticking straight up in the air ("rally sharks"), determine the outcome of the game was influenced by the appearance of a squirrel or a cat on the field of play and not speak to someone who hasn't given up a hit for fear of jinxing him.
If ever there was a collision of modern science and ancient superstition, it occurs on a baseball field. That's because, regardless of how hard you try to delineate it, the game defies you. Quantify, analyze, grid to your heart's content and at some point you're going to bump up against the reality that the ball just does funny stuff sometimes.
Which is why, in Major League dugouts the nation over, you'll find men with advanced degrees from MIT having earnest, sincere discussions with men who practice Santeria. And either one of them could be correct.
Baseball is like Einstein getting halfway through writing out his Theory of Relativity on a blackboard and saying, "here's where you yell 'booga, booga, booga, boo!"
So in a world where there appears to be a finite number of outcomes, all of them awful, allow me to appreciate a game where men expend incredible amounts of treasure and energy to control every aspect and then a sub-.200-hitting shortstop closes his eyes, swings hard and accidentally hits a game-winning home run.
Kind of like life: You think you've got everything buttoned down, and a squirrel runs out on your field.
Need further proof of baseball's quirky nature? While running to his position recently, a Braves shortstop hopped awkwardly and injured his knee while attempting to avoid stepping on the first-base line, which is a long-time baseball superstition. He later blamed the injury on bad luck.
So, irony isn't dead. Apparently it lives in Atlanta.
Commentary on 08/18/2017