An excerpt from my latest blog: Oakland, CA, Sept. 7, 2011 – I got to do something I hadn’t done in years: attend a baseball game. This probably wouldn’t strike any fans of the game as a big deal, but having not lived in the region for seventeen years and being the first game I’ve been to in fifteen years when on leave from a deployment to Bosnia, the significance changes. Even better: the seats we had were behind home plate. Now, I suspect that like most people who are fans of the game, walking on the field is a joy, especially in front of a crowd. Imagine doing that on Little League Day in your uniform for your team that season. Add to this spending time in the stadium while the home team and their opponents practice with only ushers and concessions people in the stands with you, all while you haven’t entered the school system just yet. Yeah, I’m that guy. Due to astigmatism, dysgraphia, and light sensitivity, I stopped playing the game. I didn’t stop enjoying it, however. I take the time here to lay out my association with baseball because of what I noticed for the first time on this particular day. Perspective is everything and a lot of things are lost when you view a game from different angles or on television. Baseball, as the saying goes, is a game of inches. From the size of the ball and width of the bat to the motion on the ball’s trajectory, the game is won or lost on the minutia generated in the space of the strike zone. But what happens as the ball crosses the plate is tempered by the shifting of the seven players behind the pitcher; and, more importantly, those of the catcher and the batter. It’s what the seats behind home plate revealed that I never noticed before. The obfuscation of distance by camera lenses or seats elsewhere in the stadium; the slight shifting of feet. How a catcher shifts his feet determines what bases he can throw to if necessary to prevent a runner’s advance. In addition to when the batter swings, his feet also affect the outcome. What a player is capable of affects the strategy pursued. Basketball is another game of precision that uses finesse and momentum to defeat the opposing team. Angles are of great importance as the hoop is just large enough to allow the ball to pass through without any difficulties and have a margin of space. This margin helps to prevent a halt in play as well as to provide a range of angular attacks to make guarding against scoring opportunities require as much skill as trying to circumvent those defenders. Short of driving to the hoop, players target the rectangle on the backboard indirectly to score. As physically moving opponents is a violation of the rules, players get as close as possible to each other without committing a foul all while being as fleet of foot as possible. Not all games of precision require timing or as much movement, however. Golf is one such example. This is a game of precision that requires patience. It isn’t about concentration as much as it is intuition. Players try to drive the ball as close to the hole as they can in the fewest strokes, but it’s how they position their bodies that affect accuracy as much as the clubs used to get there. Here, the chief skills are gauging the angle and power behind the flight of the ball. The rest is trusting that one’s body will generate the natural swing to ensure the desired result. The rest can be found here: http://skirmisher.com/node/297
