“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too,” Yogi Berra said, one of the game’s best managers as well as one of the best catchers to ever protect the home plate.
“Off The Field” is a column dedicated to sports opinions from various writers within Talon Marks. Stories are published on Mondays and Wednesdays.
“Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand,” said Leo Durocher, a Hall of Fame manager.
They are perfect examples of yesteryear and being introduced to the game while in diapers and when I was served warm milk in a Dodger bottle tucked either in my mouth or underneath my arm as a baby, while running rampant around the house.
Although I was never able to play for a baseball team, I was fortunate enough to cheer on my brother during his middle school years and as a high school player when he made it to Blair Field in Long Beach.
Baseball will forever be the best sport of all because of these memories, the many more that have come after and the ones that have yet to happen.
Fast forward a few years later, carrying the baby bottle turned into sitting in the stands, cheering for the team in person at a World Series game.
The fact that we were able to witness the World Series in 2017 and 2018 is a memory that will forever be enshrined.
One of the biggest joys about the game is that even if the team you root for doesn’t make it into October, it is technically not the end of the baseball year.
Your favorite players might be continuing their playing days working on the kinks that they cannot work on in a full season in the Major League somewhere else.
Even if a person’s favorite major-league baseball team might not make it to the playoffs, baseball for the fans is not necessarily done. They can look toward other teams somewhere in the foreign leagues.
Leagues in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Venezuela are well represented and in the winter months when baseball is not being played in the United States, it’s still going on in foreign nations.
Not to mention these countries also have real leagues of their own and they are not limited to being played during the Major League Baseball offseason.
Let’s not forget to mention that Japan and Korea respectively have their own leagues that, for the most part, overlap with one another and MLB.
The KBO, or the 10 teams in the Korean Baseball Organization, begins in March for the upcoming season, as major-league teams are busy in the spring training stage. Japan has its 144 scheduled games running from April to October.
On top of that, every four years Major League Baseball has an event open to all countries called “The World Baseball Classic” in which there are teens and underdogs who may end up champions over the more highly-esteemed leagues.
Please do not overlook the Little League World Series that is played in the summer months as teens battle it out to hopefully end up playing in Williamsport, PA to see the future stars duke it out for the title and the label of being called “the best in the world.”
We can go on and on and on, but just to keep things as they stand, there is nothing in the world of sports like there is in baseball. Baseball will be a favorite forever because it is on TV year-round for everyone to witness in all its glory.
