spitball

Growing up, I enjoyed watching baseball as much as football. But through the years, I've come to enjoy watching football more. Maybe it has to do with having fewer games and more action. I find myself interested in the off-season and the NFL draft now too.

And perhaps it has to do with all of the spitting in baseball.

Not that there isn't any spitting in other sports too - there is. But for all of the physicality of football, I rarely see it there. Unfortunately, I saw it once while watching an NBA game, upon the hardwood floor no less, but just that one time. But in baseball, they spit so much it's like they're doing it to regulate their body temperature or something. This observation of all of the spitting is nothing new - it was even captured quite nicely in the movie The Naked Gun, where even the fans join in (fortunately, that was an exaggeration). Although I thought I was getting used to it, all of the spitting may finally be getting to me. It's making the game difficult to enjoy.

One lasting image of this year's World Series may well be a particular camera shot of watching Philadelphia Phillie Ryan Howard sitting in the dugout. No, it wasn't him doing the spitting: the shot was of him sitting on the bench in profile and to his left was another player several feet away, but off-camera. He was positioned higher than Howard, perhaps with his feet on the bench and sitting upon the shelf behind the back of the bench. In any case, here's this dramatic close-up shot of Howard, and it's being punctuated with the occasional stream of spit stretching across the length of the television screen as if from a fountain. Disgusting. I've thought for years that one of the most awful jobs has got to be that of dugout cleaner.

I've even lost respect for baseball players as athletes as a result of all of the spitting. I mean, in what sport is it even possible to stand around chewing tobacco anyway? Football? No way! Basketball demands running up and down the court the entire game, so no. Tennis, no. Any sport with a hard, flat surface wouldn't allow it. Like I mentioned earlier, very occasional spitting can happen in any sport, but in baseball, can one look at it being played for even 10 seconds without seeing a player doing it? It's gotten so that it's as natural as breathing. What happens when one of the players hosts an outdoor barbecue at his home: do he and his guests spit as much all over the lawn and patio? I hope not.

If there is anything positive to all of the spitting, I think it's how tobacco appears to be getting used less and less. Now much of what is being used are sunflower seeds and what-not. Which is still unsightly, but not as bad as treating ballparks as giant spittoons. Chewing gum is okay. But in other cases, I don't even know what's in their mouths that they have to spit so much.