How To Understand Baseball History

The quest to understand baseball history is not merely a quest for knowledge.  It is a quest for spirit, for hope, for the great intangibles that have led to so many half-jokes equating baseball to religion.  Baseball is anticipation, an exercise in trying to divine what will happen next, the art of "choking up" on the bat to "cheat" on a fastball the hitter figures through arcane and dubious logic or instinct will come screaming down at him from the mound.  What are the dark origins of the science of "getting a pitch to hit"?  Who were the barnstormers?  How did Bert Blyleven's curveballs DO that?

From Ken Burns's riveting documentary, "Baseball," to Roger Kahn's classic book "The Boys of Summer," or the novels of W.P. Kinsella, who wrote "Shoeless Joe," upon which the film "Field of Dreams" was based, to a walk through the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, even to the "Moneyball" studies of sabermetrics and sports reporting, understanding baseball's history and it's place in it, the seeker is time and again confronted by larger-than-life characters and the faith of the millions of fans that rest weightily on their mighty, or as the case may have it, bumbling shoulders.

Libraries could devote whole wings to material on baseball alone.  Knowledge, however, only increases our inability to quite describe those intangibles, that unique pleasure of a hot dog at the ballpark with the voice of Vin Scully in your ear as the unforeseeable plays out.

Understanding baseball history is all about defining moments, and the context in which those moments suddenly occurred, for baseball moments are, by the very nature of the game, sudden.

Start with a team, or a time period, or a player.  The works mentioned above will provide any enthusiast a nearly inexhaustible road map to endless fascination.  Take the time to get the stories, the culture, the business and the mystique.  Learn of baseball's origins in the 19th Century, its pervasive influence in 20th century America, its rise and fall and rise again.  Learn of the injustice of the Negro Leagues, the talent and excitement of the barnstormers, the importance of Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson and the fact that at 57, they still couldn't hit Satchel Paige's pitches.

Baseball makes you think.  It begs you to plumb its depths, discover its secrets.  Understanding baseball history is a path to mining the past to see the future; because those classic moments never seem to get old.  They seem to stand forever.  Did he know that pitch was coming?  Did he leap before that rocket left the bat? Is this finally our year?  Are the Cubs really cursed?

Understanding baseball history is understanding the magic in a great moment, the greatness in a magic moment, and the intangible thrill of anticipation.