Baseball: a metaphor for life

With  36-18 record, our Urbana Locomotives hit a bit of dry spell going 1-6 in the Boys of Summer APBA League.  Against the Boston Bravos, we found what cures all ills.

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…a walkoff win in the 10th innning…

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…and a second walkoff win in the ninth.

I was recently was chatting with a friend and colleague from work who wasn’t a huge baseball fan.  He found out my interest in the sport and asked me what it was that attracted me to the sport.  Unlike some, he certainly meant it in a sincere way.

My answer:

In a way, baseball is a metaphor for life.  If you continue to do well, you get to keep playing.  There are no time limits or artificial limits.  If you hit the ball, you get another chance to keep playing.

That’s not a knock on baseball’s counterparts like football, basketball or hockey.  The added pressure of time pressure given the right game situation, has given us some of the best game endings in sports history.  My favorite is Illinois basketball’s 15 point run against Arizona in the last 4 minutes in the Regional Final in 2005.

But my point still stands.  In baseball, if you “do well”, you keep playing.  Or to take it further, if you play better than your opponent, you don’t get to stop playing regardless of any time limit.

P.S. The Urbana Locomotives are back on track (no pun intended).  Including those two walkoffs, we’ve won six in a row and are now 43-25 on the year.

Thomas Nelshoppen

I am an IT consultant by day and an APBA media mogul by night. My passions are baseball (specifically Illini baseball), photography and of course, APBA. I have been fortunate to be part of the basic game Illowa APBA League since 1980 as well as a frequent participant of the Chicagoland APBA Tournament. I am slogging through a 1966 NL replay and hope to finish before I die.

2 Comments:

  1. Way to go Locos!

  2. Scott Fennessy

    Off to a nice start I see. Your topic brought to mind the best speech in a movie possibly ever to me. The James Earl Jones moment in “Field Of Dreams”

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