Baseball without a clock, is viewed, I believe, a little differently than other sports. When one team goes ahead early, it obviously reduces the chance of that team winning the game. Unlike football, say, when you can take a knee late in the game because things are out of reach in the small amount of time left, in baseball, hope exists (however faint) until the 27 out is recorded. When I was a child, I always cheered like my team had great hopes to win, even down by four or five runs, heading into the bottom of the 9th. Three outs left? I always assumed, if you just kept hitting, you could win any game, no matter how late.
Thousands of games later, and I’ve come to realize that comebacks, especially those from a deep deficit are very, very rare. Possible, yes, but rarer than I even imagined. Which makes them all the more significant to me. Baseball is a monotonous 162 game grind, punctuated by small bouts of insane activity. When one of those moments comes, I’m not going to miss an opportunity to romaniticize it. And the best way I know to turn baseball into poetry, is with a line graph.
