A Game of Pain

It's often said that baseball is a game more about losing than winning. This certainly seems to be true for me, as a Mets fan. Of course, even a good hitter gets out more often than they get a hit, and that's what the saying is really about.

Paper Cuts, at the NY Times, had a post not long ago about sports writing where they quoted George Plimpton's saying that 'the smaller the ball, the better the book.' Now as was pointed out in the comments, this could lead to pinball or marbles being the best sports books, and that's not true. So really it's an implied progression from basketball to football to baseball to golf. The only one of these sports I follow is baseball, though I also follow World Cup soccer(or Football if you live anywhere besides North America).

Now, I don't hold with hard and fast rules, but I think that there is something to baseball writing. Of course, I've only read one book devoted to baseball, Donald Hall's Father's Playing Catch with Sons, but I deeply loved it. The pain and loss so typically associated with baseball lends itself well to writing. Everyone knows Casey at the Bat. There's something very literary about the moment it describes, and it happens all the time. I would say that a 'Casey' strikes out in almost every single game. Sometimes it matters more than others.

Of course, as for sports books, I also read and really enjoyed Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, also a book about the bad times in sports as much as the good. So far, I much prefer his nonfiction.

Both books are also about being fans of the game more than they are about the sport. If baseball is a game of pain, it certainly seems that soccer can make a bid, I think all sports can. For every year that your team wins it all, there are a lot more where they don't, even if you're a Yankees fan. And true fans pride themselves more for their loyalty in the bad times than for enjoying the good times. Fair weather fan is not considered a complement.

It makes sense. The true experience includes the pain. If you're not there for that, then you can't truly understand the thrill of victory. I know that ten years from now I will still be talking about last season, and probably wear it like a badge of honor. Because I was there, and I always watched through to the last pitch.

Being a sports fan is also a lot like reading. In the end, we don't hit the home runs or pitch the strike outs anymore than we have a picnic in the ruins of a fortress with the Rochelois attacking. But we feel like we're there. The authors and the athletes share these experiences with us. Most fans begin to develop a special, entirely fictional relationship with their favorite players. Similarly, readers often do the same with their favorite characters, and sometimes their favorite authors too. D'Artagnan and Jose Reyes both feel like friends to me, but I've never met either of them.

Still, if you're a sports fan, even a little bit, there's a book out there for you, and probably a blog, and I recommend both. Then you can combine your love of the sport with your love of reading, and enrich both.