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It's really the most beautiful game. It's the most mathematical game. A game where a basepath a few feet longer, a mound a few inches higher or a few blades of grass left untended can alter the game to the point where we almost wouldn't recognize it.
It is also the most chaotic game. With a round object hurled at high speeds and struck by a cylindrical pole swung with massive force leading to the widest sphere of possible outcomes of any game I know.
As science expands our knowledge of the universe around (and in) us, I've always been struck at the poetic way in which one discovery invariably leads to a new, branching series of questions. One of my favorite things about baseball is that it seems to largely mimic science in this way. This game has been a foundational part of American culture for over a century. The amount of time spent studying it, dissecting, researching, analyzing, questioning, learning, unlearning and relearning it possibly more than any leisure activity in our nation's history.
Yet still we can't "get" baseball. ERA leads to BABIP leads to FIP leads to xFIP leads to Pitch F/X and on and on. VORP to WAR to .wOBA. +/- to UZR to the new, mist shrouded mountain top: measuring every movement of every player in relation to a every batted ball. To borrow a phrase from someone I love and respect, "It just continues." The totality of baseball knowledge remains unknown, because it's ever expanding and we are always finding new ways to measure it. To me there is comfort in that.
As writers our tone is an easy target for commenters. We're "homers" or "downers". We're not what's come before and we aren't the future. Well, except maybe for Logan. I won't speak for everyone else but I write here not for recs, shares, or other forms of praise. I certainly don't do it for pay. I do it because baseball is the greatest game I know, the Mariners the entry point through which I experience it at it's highest level and y'all the community I commiserate, celebrate, scrutinize and belabor the whole stupid thing.
My poll on Friday is what gets you the most excited for Monday? What about this game and this team will have you feeling like Monday is a holiday? It's not really a poll (spoiler: polls are kind of dumb). But on Monday the Mariners will be tied for 1st, have a chance to go wire to wire, Felix will on the bump and I will be cursing that stupid monkey and those satanic Thundersticks. I'll pour a fine beer, hold my kids and watch it all go down like a stone in the stream.
