America's Pastime (pt. 1)

Growing up, I spent most of my summers with baseball. As a kid I played tee-ball and as I got older I progressed to the point of playing American Legion baseball. When I wasn't playing baseball competitively you could find me out in the yard with my brother throwing a baseball around. As much as I enjoyed playing baseball, the next best thing to playing it myself was watching it on TV. I have been a Minnesota Twins fan for as long as I can remember. In fact my aunt gave me a game used ball that was signed by the entire 1982 Twins team on my first birthday that September. I have been fortunate enough to have experienced two World Series wins by my favorite team, which is two more than can be said for the fans of one particular team that calls the north side of Chicago home.

Seeing as how I watched the Twins almost exclusively in my formative years, with the exception of catching the nationally televised Sunday night game, you can imagine that I grew very accustomed to the American League style of baseball. I remember as a kid hearing people bemoan the existence of the designated hitter and thinking to myself, why can't these traditionalists get with the times and accept the designated hitter as part of the game? The American League style of baseball is more suited to providing exciting offensive games with more scoring and more homeruns. After all, that seemed to be what most fans, including me, were interested in seeing, high scoring games and long, towering homers.

A few years ago I moved out of Minnesota and to my current home in Milwaukee, WI. Even when I was living in MN I always had a soft spot for the Brewers with their clever MB mitt logo and their scrappy, small market mentality, so it was no surprise to me after living in Milwaukee for a few short weeks and watching the Brewers play on a nearly nightly basis that I began to cheer for the Crew. I am still a Twins fan first and foremost, but the Brewers have become my adopted home team and second favorite to watch. The Brewers had been an American League team until 1998 when they were moved to the National League in a division realignment. Although I had watched some National League games up to this point, I had never really been fully immersed in watching this style of baseball on a daily baseball.

My preference for National League baseball was something that took some time to develop. It was baseball and I enjoy watching any kind of baseball, but I slowly began to feel like the National League style was the way the game was meant to be played. It was difficult for me to identify exactly why my preferences had shifted at first. However, eventually I discovered the reason that I now preferred hitting pitchers and the lack of a DH. The reason basically boils down to the fact that the National League style of play is more cerebral. You take all of the chess moves that are seen in American League baseball and multiply the intensity of those decisions and how often those decisions have to be made by about ten fold. That makes for a much more interesting game.

To be continued...

Stay tuned for part two of America's Past Time where I'll provide some concrete examples of why I prefer the National League style of play.